Do we want British-style comparative effectiveness? Is NICE the answer?
The most recent installment of the New York Times series, “The Evidence Gap,” explores NICE and the proposition of balancing cost-based government concerns with patient-centric care.
And ground zero is kidney cancer. According to the Times’ story:
"When Bruce Hardy’s kidney cancer spread to his lung, his doctor recommended an expensive new pill from Pfizer. But Mr. Hardy is British, and the British health authorities refused to buy the medicine. His wife has been distraught."
“Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can,” Joy Hardy said in the couple’s modest home outside London. "It’s hard to know that there is something out there that could help but they’re saying you can’t have it because of cost. What price is life?”
Surprisingly the Times’ reporting is a bit old – considering that earlier this week NICE said that their ban on drugs that can give kidney cancer patients many months of extra life is to be lifted. According to the Guardian, “"The move follows British Health Secretary Alan Johnson's decision this month to overhaul the way new medicines are assessed for terminally ill patients. Denying cancer patients access to drugs that are widely available abroad has become a major political issue."
Caveat Baucus.
For more on NICE and the issue of cancer drug denial, see here.
To see how other nations (in this case, Mexico) are developing their own comparative effectiveness protocols, see here.
And consider the words of Professor Atanacio Valencia, of the Mexican Institudo Nacional de Salud Publica who cautioned. “A good economic analysis is not a faultless crystal ball. Don’t make the remedy worse than the disease.”
The most recent installment of the New York Times series, “The Evidence Gap,” explores NICE and the proposition of balancing cost-based government concerns with patient-centric care.
And ground zero is kidney cancer. According to the Times’ story:
"When Bruce Hardy’s kidney cancer spread to his lung, his doctor recommended an expensive new pill from Pfizer. But Mr. Hardy is British, and the British health authorities refused to buy the medicine. His wife has been distraught."
“Everybody should be allowed to have as much life as they can,” Joy Hardy said in the couple’s modest home outside London. "It’s hard to know that there is something out there that could help but they’re saying you can’t have it because of cost. What price is life?”
Surprisingly the Times’ reporting is a bit old – considering that earlier this week NICE said that their ban on drugs that can give kidney cancer patients many months of extra life is to be lifted. According to the Guardian, “"The move follows British Health Secretary Alan Johnson's decision this month to overhaul the way new medicines are assessed for terminally ill patients. Denying cancer patients access to drugs that are widely available abroad has become a major political issue."
Caveat Baucus.
For more on NICE and the issue of cancer drug denial, see here.
To see how other nations (in this case, Mexico) are developing their own comparative effectiveness protocols, see here.
And consider the words of Professor Atanacio Valencia, of the Mexican Institudo Nacional de Salud Publica who cautioned. “A good economic analysis is not a faultless crystal ball. Don’t make the remedy worse than the disease.”
