Cancer is not cancer, it turns out. For breast cancer, there are seven distinct diseases. All the new research is focused on tailoring drugs to each cancer subtype. Herceptin is an example. It costs $40,000 for a 12-week course. Even then it only helps half the patients.
A movie, Living Proof, about the developer of Herceptin will appear on Lifetime this Saturday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. [link]
This is from an editorial in the New York Times:
The Food and Drug Administration went into crisis mode this year as, short-staffed and underfunded, it scrambled to track tainted vegetables and medical products….[yet] a decision was made to hire outside public relations specialists – at a cost of $300,000 – to "create and foster a lasting positive image" for the agency.
But the outrage does not end there. The government requires competitive bidding for such contracts, but the F.D.A. official taxed with the image problem already had a friend at a Washington public relations firm picked out for the plum.
Full story in the Washington Post here.
This is from a Gregory Conko (Competitive Enterprise Institute) op-ed. in The Wall Street Journal.
Why do terminally ill patients have to wait so long to get access to the only treatments that hold any promise of saving their lives? And why is it not their right to decide?
Last year alone, the FDA rejected five new cancer drugs, including a breakthrough treatment for prostate cancer called Provenge. A panel of cancer experts that advises the FDA on new drug approvals unanimously agreed that Provenge was safe, and voted 13-4 that it was effective enough. But the FDA demanded still more testing that may delay approval for three years.
Marcia Angell is former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. In a much-publicized book, The Truth About Drug Companies, she charged that the pharmaceutical industry's new drugs "nearly always stem from publicly supported research." In a National Review Online piece, Henry Miller dissects these claims:
Only one in every 5,000 new products is ultimately approved as a new medicine. The direct and indirect costs of a new drug, from discovery to the pharmacy, are $1.3 billion. Only one in five drugs ultimately approved and marketed covers its R&D costs.
A study in The Journal of Women's Health finds that more than one fourth of men (27%) and women (29%) often share prescription medications with family and friends. (See the New York Times report.)
Apparently a significant number of people are self-diagnosing and self-treating common ailments. Currently a doctor's prescription is required to obtain drugs other than over-the-counter drugs. But doctors are often difficult to see. Increasingly, nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants can prescribe some drugs, but only under the supervision of a doctor. Some proposals before the FDA would allow pharmacists to dispense some prescription drugs without a doctor's order. A better idea is to move more prescription drugs over-the-counter.
This priceless gem is from a New York Times editorial:
There is no easy solution short of increasing federal spending or finding a way to drive down the cost of drugs.
They're talking about the Medicare Part D drug benefit which has a "doughnut hole"- in which seniors are exposed for 100% of drug costs between $2,400 and $3,850.
Amazingly, more than 200 million nonelderly Americans – without government spending or any government price controls – have managed to find health insurance with no doughnut hole.
Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, with 500,000 new cases each year worldwide and 274,000 annual deaths. In the US, there are 12,000 new cases a year and 3,600 deaths – better than the international rate because of extensive Pap smear testing. New vaccines are able to prevent about 70% of these cancers and millions of young American women are taking advantage of the opportunity. The payoff is attractive: the social cost is from $30,000 to $70,000 per year of life saved in the developed world. If the price comes down, these vaccines could "revolutionize women's health" in developing countries, particularly Africa.
A front page story on this spectacular medical development appears in The New York Times, running to almost two full inside pages. The article is filled with….celebration?….no criticism!….of many things….but mainly of drug companies for marketing the vaccines and …..(are you ready?)….ACTUALLY MAKING A PROFIT.
The Times should focus next on childhood vaccines, where federal policy has squeezed all profit out of the market, where there is no promotion or marketing, and where the vaccination rates are abysmally low – even where the procedure is free.
See the NCPA Brief Analysis on this.