The ASCO Value Task Force attacks the very patient preferences it has pledged to respect and integrate into it’s tool by claiming that the ‘crisis’ of cancer drug spending is being driven by “sometimes unrealistic patient and family expectations that lead clinicians to offer or recommend some of these services, despite the lack of supporting evidence of utility or benefit.”
If it hasn’t made its view clear by now, the Task Force also asserts cancer patients “ also overestimate the benefits of treatments that sometimes extend life by only weeks or months or not at all. “ Oncologists are generally aware of this conundrum but uncertain about whether and how the cost of care should affect their recommendations. Although raising awareness of costs and providing tools to assess value may help to manage costs while maintaining high-quality care, some oncologists see this as being in conflict with their duty to individual patients.”
This amounts to a tacit effort to encourage assisted suicide, a cause Task Force chair Lowell Schnipper has promoted for 20 years.
Here's the best response to this cold calculus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fo2uNqKMR8
If it hasn’t made its view clear by now, the Task Force also asserts cancer patients “ also overestimate the benefits of treatments that sometimes extend life by only weeks or months or not at all. “ Oncologists are generally aware of this conundrum but uncertain about whether and how the cost of care should affect their recommendations. Although raising awareness of costs and providing tools to assess value may help to manage costs while maintaining high-quality care, some oncologists see this as being in conflict with their duty to individual patients.”
This amounts to a tacit effort to encourage assisted suicide, a cause Task Force chair Lowell Schnipper has promoted for 20 years.
Here's the best response to this cold calculus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fo2uNqKMR8
