Two Decades to an American Culture of Death

This whole subject reminds me of one of my favorite sci-fi movies. Can you guess which one? I'll give you a hint.

"It's people. Soylent Green is made out of people. They're making our food out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!"

Death Drugs Cause Uproar in Oregon

The news from Barbara Wagner's doctor was bad, but the rejection letter from her insurance company was crushing.

Barbara Wagner
(Paul Carter/Register-Guard)The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

"It was horrible," Wagner told ABCNews.com. "I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won't give you the medication to live."

Critics of Oregon's decade-old Death With Dignity Law -- the only one of its kind in the nation -- have been up in arms over the indignity of her unsigned rejection letter. Even those who support Oregon's liberal law were upset.

Who has the right to tell someone whether they can live or die?

And do you think this will even be worse with national health care,

remember abortion was the womans choice, the unborn didn't have a voice

Do the old folks get a choice?

Do they too now not have a voice?

abcnews.go.com...

[edit on 073131p://bSunday2009 by Stormdancer777]

What is the rate of success on that drug?

The survival rate for lung cancer refers to the percentage of people who survive the disease for a specific time period after their diagnosis. Relative survival rate, which we talk about in this article, measures the survival of people with lung cancer in comparison to the general population..

Overall, fewer than 10% of people with primary lung cancer are alive 5 years after diagnosis.

Since your article failed to say what drug, I had to guess...

Hegland has a specific lung cancer that is caused by a genetic change in her cancer called an ALK gene rearrangement, which is present in about five percent of lung cancers. In the USA this subtype is expected to account for over 10,000 new lung cancer patients ever year. Ms Hegland is one of only 23 patients in the world who have both tested positive for the ALK gene and then received Pfizer’s new drug, an ALK inhibitor specific for this subtype of lung cancer, in a clinical trial.

Though the medication does not completely cure the cancer, results are often dramatic turning a potential death sentence into a manageable disease. “After only six weeks of treatment with the drug, this lung looks completely normal. There is no sign of the cancer," said Ross Camidge, MD, Clinical Director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center's Lung Cancer Program, and one of the researchers who has helped to develop the ALK inhibitor.

Either way, you need more information before you even begin to make an informed decision.




[edit on 10-8-2009 by jprophet420]

online.wsj.com...

Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief
White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the 'overuse' of medical care.

Dr. Emanuel argues that to make such decisions, the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual. He proposes adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going: "Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity—those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberations—are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Covering services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic, and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia." (Hastings Center Report, November-December, 1996)

In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, Dr. Emanuel and co-authors presented a "complete lives system" for the allocation of very scarce resources, such as kidneys, vaccines, dialysis machines, intensive care beds, and others. "One maximizing strategy involves saving the most individual lives, and it has motivated policies on allocation of influenza vaccines and responses to bioterrorism. . . . Other things being equal, we should always save five lives rather than one.

"However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear." In fact, Dr. Emanuel makes a clear choice: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated (see Dr. Emanuel's chart nearby).

Dr. Emanuel concedes that his plan appears to discriminate against older people, but he explains: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination. . . . Treating 65 year olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehoods would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more life-years is not."

communitarian perspective

Dr. Emanuel concedes that his plan appears to discriminate against older people, but he explains: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination.

Dr. Emanuel has fought for a government takeover of health care for over a decade. In 1993, he urged that President Bill Clinton impose a wage and price freeze on health care to force parties to the table. "The desire to be rid of the freeze will do much to concentrate the mind," he wrote with another author in a Feb. 8, 1993, Washington Post op-ed. Now he recommends arm-twisting Chicago style. "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda," he wrote last Nov. 16 in the Health Care Watch Blog. "If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort."

Is this what Americans want?

"Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda,"

WOW

"If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort."

Ms. McCaughey is chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former lieutenant governor of New York state.

[edit on 073131p://bThursday2009 by Stormdancer777]