FDA Un-Approves Breast Cancer Drug Because It’s Too Expensive
But it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Obamacare was a government take over of health care, and that the feds consider this particular treatment to be too expensive.
A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.
Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.
It costs $8,000 (£5,000) a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year. The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.
The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited “effectiveness” grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that “cost effectiveness” was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.
If the approval of the drug is revoked then US insurers would be likely to stop paying for Avastin.
It seems to me that the cost/benefit effectiveness of a drug should be between the patient, the patient’s doctor and the patient’s insurance company (if any). In making the government our defacto provider of health care (even private insurance policies must be approved by the feds under Obamacare), we’ve given them a veto power over our health care.
Want access to a specific drug or treatment? If the government is picking up the tab for your care they might veto it. Not because it’s unsafe, but because it’s too expensive.
Sarah Palin was ridiculed for suggesting that Obamacare would lead to “death panels.” Well, how many people will die or suffer because the government is making its decisions based not on the best care for Americans but rather its own bottom line?
Tags: avastin, death panels, food and drug administration, government health care, obamacare
