From England:"....Avastin,Erbitux and Vectibix will not be routinely available on the NHS

Info

"NICE says three treatments – Roche’s Avastin, Merck KgAa’s
Erbitux and Amgen’s Vectibix – are all not cost effective in
treating metastatic colorectal cancer.

The Institute concluded the high cost of the drugs could not be
justified because none of the companies presented convincing data
to show they significantly extended lives of patients with the disease."

From here: http://www.inpharm.com/
(Published on 05/09/11 at 08:59am)

Better health,

John

coloCan said:

current article was/is at:
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2033777


And a positive item from england:"Soil bacteria help Kill cancer tumors" at

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/233879.php

It's easy to get mad.

But we should be courageous enough to look at the truth,
rather than the hype.

If a drug might extend life by up to 3.5 months, is it worth
spending millions of dollars for it?

Sorting through the hype and getting to the reality of the
situation, can be of great comfort, or maddening frustration.

Cancer patients should be screaming for drugs that work,
instead of being so complacent to what the industry's promoting.

We need better than what they've been providing, but nothing
is going to change unless we face the truth and stop demanding the
industry continues to profit on drugs that really do not do much
for our overall survival rate.

That's my two centavo's worth.

Best of health,

John

lifeboat economics vs cost maximization
Britain, no longer great, is further down the road to economic devolution. Their system is even more budget constrained, where money spent on one person denies spending to others. Their national insurance system is forced to imperfectly choose, and consider cost-benefits more than our system, with more payers and players, does.

In fact, the US medical system could be called a cost promoting system, where the most expensive tx, often the least cost effective treatments, are promoted over superior options. This frequently happens when a sexy patent medicine displaces an effective generic. This also one of the issues between alternative medicine protocols that may work well but are not well known, documented or supported, vs newer, FDA approved, patent medicines that consume fortunes with low success rates.

People are both being distracted from seeking better answers, and being taken hostage for political ransom by this type of bait in the media.

tanstaafl said:

lifeboat economics vs cost maximization
Britain, no longer great, is further down the road to economic devolution. Their system is even more budget constrained, where money spent on one person denies spending to others. Their national insurance system is forced to imperfectly choose, and consider cost-benefits more than our system, with more payers and players, does.

In fact, the US medical system could be called a cost promoting system, where the most expensive tx, often the least cost effective treatments, are promoted over superior options. This frequently happens when a sexy patent medicine displaces an effective generic. This also one of the issues between alternative medicine protocols that may work well but are not well known, documented or supported, vs newer, FDA approved, patent medicines that consume fortunes with low success rates.

People are both being distracted from seeking better answers, and being taken hostage for political ransom by this type of bait in the media.

Errr
Are you from the UK? I don't think being in the UK we have as it bad. What I'm hearing about America's financial situation is much worse. Your health system while some of you may pay for it, your actually running out of some cancer drugs???

Please try not to insult another country if your not from it without facts and figures.

Avistan has always been not widely available on the NHS, people have had to pay out of pocket for it. In some instances they do get it back if they win their case against the PCT.

Daily mail, is not a reliable paper, if the news was in the times or telegraph I would be more inclined to believe it.

Please check out www.bowelcancer.co.uk for more accurate information or cancer research uk.

coloCan said:

current article was/is at:
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2033777


And a positive item from england:"Soil bacteria help Kill cancer tumors" at

medicalnewstoday.com/articles/233879.php

Love it!
Can we just eat dirt to get this bacteria?! We have lots of that on our farm!

PhillieG said:

Why Stats Are Misleading
John, I was part of an AP Story that was all over the internet about 6 years ago that dealt with the "High Price of Drugs" and if it's worth it. They focused on Avastin. They said something like it extended life by 3 months. OK, I took Avastin for 5 months roughly 90 months ago (7 1/2 years). Here I am!
Was it worth it? Hell yes!
Do we need a better way of judging the success of a drug? Hell yes again!
Do we need to look at more natural ways of dealing with cancer. Again, hell yes!
-p

Phil
Re:
"They focused on Avastin. They said something like it extended
life by 3 months. OK, I took Avastin for 5 months roughly 90
months ago"

Those "stats" were provided by the manufacturers, and they're
now debating the value of the drugs (cost vs effectiveness) based
on the stats provided by those manufacturers.

We all would like to believe that what we've used is what's saved
our life..... and in some cases, even against the odds presented
by the industry itself.... Funny, huh?

Stay well,

John

Sonia32 said:

Errr
Are you from the UK? I don't think being in the UK we have as it bad. What I'm hearing about America's financial situation is much worse. Your health system while some of you may pay for it, your actually running out of some cancer drugs???

Please try not to insult another country if your not from it without facts and figures.

Avistan has always been not widely available on the NHS, people have had to pay out of pocket for it. In some instances they do get it back if they win their case against the PCT.

Daily mail, is not a reliable paper, if the news was in the times or telegraph I would be more inclined to believe it.

Please check out www.bowelcancer.co.uk for more accurate information or cancer research uk.

problems and possibilities for all
Sonia, I was being critical of both countries as needing better solutions, * including treatments that are cheaper, better and already available*. Each system has its peculiarities, patients can get squeezed, or mangled, in either country, hence the "versus" title.

I was indelicate and I apologize for that. There are several uncomfortable issues here for both the US and UK. To many observers, both countries, perhaps the West broadly, suffer heavy debt, eroded economies, weakened competitive bases, and growing, unsustainable liabilities.

NHS style coverage is not what the US middle class historically expects as acceptable insurance and hospitalization. In fact, they have long been scared to tears of it.
.....
In the year before her cancer diagnosis, my wife lost a favorite cousin unnecessarily under NHS policies. The cousin had developed a serious infection in the hospital, only recognized while casually talking with her sister overseas on the phone. The sister, a doctor, recognized this as an emergency situation that required IV antibiotics, stat. The NHS hospital point blank refused the IV antibiotics, gave oral antibiotics, malpractice where the sister lives. The cousin died less than 24 hrs later, unexpectedly leaving 3 kids.

I've got my own baggage too. I've got a stage IV wife that probably would not be alive much longer in either the UK or US systems, after a miserable year of hard chemo and/or radiation treatments and some gained months, by the oncologists' own estimates. Actually, I was more worried about her QoL and hardiness under the proposed chemo programs, never mind the cancer. What I also saw, is that there are already simple, cheap, targetable substances that do modulate or inhibit cancer's molecular pathways as well as or better than patent medicines, that have not been pursued in a results oriented way, if at all. Doing alternative/experimental medicine custom fit from the literature, we simply don't fit well with either system - we are doing much better going elsewhere, costing much less, and paying cash.

[US] health system while some of you may pay for it,...running out of some cancer drugs??? Both systemic flaws, and potentially liable misbehavior, are involved here. There is no shortage of inexpensive drugs like 5FU and leucovorin globally. There are local problems with both FDA and the companies, systemic problems, and perhaps criminal problems.

Please check out www.bowelcancer.co.uk... "Services for this domain have been discontinued" See, everything is on an off day.

Betsydoglover said:

Avastin etc.
Not trying to start an argument. Avastin has worked for me. As John says, everyone who is doing well thinks what they did worked for them.

However...........some thoughts about drug statistics.

1) Most stats come from clinical trials - e.g. Avastin adds 2.5 months to life. Once a drug is approved, there mostly aren't any more significant trials.

2) A significant percentage of patients participating in trials are already out of other options. Most patients who are doing well are not in trials. So, the improved survival stats for Avastin or any similar drug are going to sound pretty small.

3) Suppose there was a drug that takes a while to work. Trial patients are typically booted out of the trial if their disease progresses. So, if a drug takes "time" to work, but then works well in some patients, the trial won't have data about those patients. Avastin or Erbitux etc might be drugs like that. Not sure, but it is something to think about.

Just a few thoughts. I am an Avastin fan and believe that it has saved my life for a while at least!

Worked wonders on me as well . I'm a fan too!
Hugs people !

Betsydoglover said:

Avastin etc.
Not trying to start an argument. Avastin has worked for me. As John says, everyone who is doing well thinks what they did worked for them.

However...........some thoughts about drug statistics.

1) Most stats come from clinical trials - e.g. Avastin adds 2.5 months to life. Once a drug is approved, there mostly aren't any more significant trials.

2) A significant percentage of patients participating in trials are already out of other options. Most patients who are doing well are not in trials. So, the improved survival stats for Avastin or any similar drug are going to sound pretty small.

3) Suppose there was a drug that takes a while to work. Trial patients are typically booted out of the trial if their disease progresses. So, if a drug takes "time" to work, but then works well in some patients, the trial won't have data about those patients. Avastin or Erbitux etc might be drugs like that. Not sure, but it is something to think about.

Just a few thoughts. I am an Avastin fan and believe that it has saved my life for a while at least!

Jumping on that wagon
Avastin fan here too!!
Winter Marie