US breast cancer drug decision 'marks start of death panels'

I put this in the Political News forum due to the active political debate taking place on the U.S. health care issues.

"Death Panels" was a term thrown around to verbalize the fear that the government would start rationing care it thought was too expensive - never mind the very lives of the patients involved and the feelings of their families.

Proponents of the obamacare said rationing would never happen.

Well, here we go. Some are saying this article represents the start of "death panel"rationing in the U.S. under obamacare.

source

America's health watchdog is considering revoking its approval of the drug Avastin for use on women with advanced breast cancer, leading to accusations that it will mark the start of 'death panel' drug rationing.

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.

Invokes images of faceless bureaucrats (similar to the sloth-like DMV workers we've all grown to despise) making life and death decisions for you and your loved ones ...

reply to post by centurion1211


While I think this is disgusting to consider, I have to wonder how often it was approved for use by private insurance companies as well? It seems that they would also be looking for any opportunity not to pay for an expensive procedure. Once again, it's reiterated that if you don't have the money, you won't be taken care of to the best that we have to offer.

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by centurion1211

 

While I think this is disgusting to consider, I have to wonder how often it was approved for use by private insurance companies as well? It seems that they would also be looking for any opportunity not to pay for an expensive procedure. Once again, it's reiterated that if you don't have the money, you won't be taken care of to the best that we have to offer.

All I can tell you from personal experience that our "Insurance" company just shelled out a fortune on treating someone I know with multiple myeloma using the wonder drug revlimid. The stuff was like over 20k a treatment and along with surgery and bone marrow cloning and transplant cost over a million. His out of pocket 6K which is our max out of pocket.

I have had 2 catscans and 2 mri's on my head and kidneys over the last 3 years... no problems.

I will take my private insurance any day.

reply to post by centurion1211


Luckily, this wasn't as bad as I thought once I read the article.

But of course rationing is going to happen. The liberals today are not about adding to the system, but completely about micromanaging, rationing and effective use of what we have.

Liberals are useful to make sure that even the poor are taken care of, but when they go too far, no one is happy and a lot of people end up starving and / or dead and / or under totalitarian rule. (balance between forces)

It is only when people are allowed the freedom to create and problem solve their *own* way and compete and let the natural forces determine which way is best that the system can truly reach its full potential.

The liberals today do two things: they spend money that they don't earn, and they regulate to the point where the country earns less money, and it becomes nearly impossible to earn money yourself without getting a headache from all the micro-managing that is counter-intuitive.

Sometimes I wonder, how do they expect to help the poor while simultaneously taking out corporations and capitolism, two things that make the money they love to spend?

The point is, OF COURSE there are going to be death panels if things continue. The liberals aren't going to magically start increasing entropy out of nowhere.

The liberals as a party don't even believe it is possible to increase entropy, but want to "sustain" to the point where it means no growth. And what happens when there is no growth? The system decays. It is impossible to maintain a system without growth.

The system will continue to decay until the politicians can say things like "but without the death panels, someone over in such-and-such would not live even though their grocery records show they ate healthy while such-and-such ate fast food and deserves to die first."

That is absolutely where this road will lead.

Notice that the liberals of today don't even CONSIDER the possibility of opening the market in order to let the natural forces create companies that see the opportunity of people dying as a way to make money, and thus offer the services at a price they can afford, which is so much better than killing them off and telling them it's their own fault. The liberals don't even CONSIDER the possibility of finding a way to let both people live.

They don't have the ability.

My point is, when the system is out of balance, it is not good for anyone.

My second, most important point that should be heard over all others, is that liberals are capable of lying because they do not understand the cause and effect of what they do. They say that there will not be death panels today, because there are plenty of resources to go around, but then tomorrow when their own policies leave us strapped for resources, they will not even remember that they promised no death panels and will instead campaign for them, because "it is only fair."

I am a moderate, by the way. I was against Bush during his Patriot Act fiasco.

[edit on 16-8-2010 by darkbake]

Withholding treatment for the very old and chronically ill is a double edged sword.

Every Tuesday I go to the Cancer Center in our hospital for Procrit injections to stimulate my bone marrow to make red blood cells.

Most of the patients I see in the waiting room and in the treatment area are very old and very ill with cancer. They cannot walk and or go to the bathroom alone. They look like pure death.

I understand how precious life is and I also understand these sick people sit all day and hardly speak. I wonder if life is so good for them. It would not be for me.

The people I'm speaking of seem like empty shells and have very little communication with anyone as many have alzheimer's.

As hard as it is for me to post this I must give some deep thought to the merit of death counseling for the severely ill with no hope of getting better.

I'm 63 and promise you I will not allow myself to get bedridden and have someone wipe my backside if I am still in my right mind.

I have two people that have promised to allow me to just stop eating and accepting medication if I choose to die with dignity. All I ask is for drugs to keep me comfortable. My father did this at 84 years old.

There are many things worse than the sweet sting of death.

reply to post by dizziedame


"I have two people that have promised to allow me to just stop eating and accepting medication if I choose to die with dignity. All I ask is for drugs to keep me comfortable. My father did this at 84 years old."

Actually, if you're going to do that, it will be quicker and less uncomfortable to just refuse liquids. Death by dehydration is relatively calm and painless, I was told by a geriatric nurse. Starvation could take weeks or even months. Dehydration will usually cause death within a week, or only a few days if you're already very weak or sick.

'Death panels' have been in existence for years in the private industry, they just call it denial of coverage for certain expenditures. It's the same thing.

dizziedame made an excellent point in an above post. It boils down to the right to live or die. I've seen people die suddenly and painfully, I've seen people spend weeks and months in agony only to die regardless of treatment. I've also seen people go quietly in the night.

Everything dies. You, me, everyone we know will die one day. Can we at least have the ability to face the inevitable on our own if we so choose? At what point do you decide to keep the heart pumping while the brain is dead? Or to keep the brain alive while the rest of the body decays?

Decide for yourself right now on how you want to die. Don't leave it up to your grieving loved ones or 'some bureaucrat'. Write a living will.

A bit lost on this. Other than the fact that the FDA has *always* been a scam in the pockets of big pharma, doesn't article actually state that the endorsement was pulled because there was actually a recent study done that shows no evidence of benefit from the drug?

How is that a "death panel"?

By outlawing treatments for cancer, and other deadly diseases, that actually cure people, the FDA itself, is a death panel.
Come to think of it;
By allowing deadly chemicals into the food chain that are proven toxic unto death, they are actually murderers for profit

[edit on 17-8-2010 by Danbones]

More information.

Avastin received accelerated approval for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in 2008 on the basis of a single clinical trial, which showed that when used with another drug, it slowed tumor progression but extended patients' lives on average by only about five months. In two subsequent post-marketing trials, Avastin was paired with different chemotherapy drugs than in the original trial and performed even less well, prolonging patients' lives on average by no more than three months.

The FDA advisory committee voted 12 to 1 in July to recommend that regulators revoke the approval for breast cancer. (Because it is approved for treatment of other cancers, Avastin would remain on the market and at physicians' discretion could be used "off-label" for breast cancer; but off-label, a hugely expensive treatment — a wholesale cost of $88,000 for a typical breast cancer patient — would be less likely to be covered by insurance.)

www.latimes.com...

[edit on 8/17/2010 by ~Lucidity]

Originally posted by links234
'Death panels' have been in existence for years in the private industry, they just call it denial of coverage for certain expenditures. It's the same thing.

No, it's not the same thing. Here's why.

If it is a private company making a decision like this, you still have other options. But if it is the monolithic federal government making these types of decisions - and they have made themselves the only source for medical coverage - you have nowhere else to turn - except perhaps the funeral home.

Let's use the auto insurance industry as an analogy. Right now, if you don't like the coverage or service you receive from your company, you are free to choose another company. But if the feds decide to take over auto insurance and they decide to deny coverage or a claim, you would be screwed, with no recourse anywhere else.

WebMD..

Against the advice of a previous advisory committee, the FDA in 2008 gave Avastin "accelerated approval" for the treatment of spreading breast cancer, in combination with chemotherapy. As a condition of that approval, Genentech agreed to conduct two new clinical trials.

Those trials showed no evidence that Avastin offered an overall benefit to breast cancer patients. In contrast, the drug added significantly to the side effects of chemotherapy.


But clinical trials showed little evidence that breast cancer patients benefit by adding Avastin to chemotherapy. The drug increased the rate at which these patients experienced serious side effects.

Briefing documents prepared for the panel by FDA staff painted a dim picture, suggesting Avastin's risks outweigh its benefits.

But Genentech noted that Avastin did not shorten patient survival, and that the drug should be tried in more patients with metastatic breast cancer in order to find out how it might best be used.

www.webmd.com...

Genetech gets accelerated approval conditioned on Genetech itself conducting clinical trials.

The trials that the drug manufacturer ran show..."little evidence that breast cancer patients benefit by adding Avastin to chemotherapy"....This was what the DRUG MANUFACTURER TRIALS disclosed...not the FDA.

But it does cause serious side effects!

So the FDA revokes the approval.

Genetech's board meeting ...

"Hey! We are making gobs of money here and we aren't shortening these womens life, just giving them all kinds of bad side effects with there remaining days..what we should really do is EXPAND our sales to more women!!"

"WTF, I thought we owned the FDA??"

"The new administration got rid of "our guy". It will take some time to buy a new one, but we are working on it."

"Hey, Bill get that PR Agency on the phone and ask if we can get some of that "Death Panel" action!"

"Already did it. They say the only paper that will touch the story given that our own study showed the drug to be useless and detrimental to breast cancer patients is the UK Telegraph."

"Well, we will take what we can get. Write the check."


Where do the "Death Panels" come in again?



[edit on 17-8-2010 by maybereal11]

Originally posted by maybereal11
WebMD..

Where do the "Death Panels" come in again?

[edit on 17-8-2010 by maybereal11]

When the money to fund obamacare gets even tighter, wait and unfortunately - for your fellow citizens - you get your answer, as more and more people start getting consigned to die to save money.

reply to post by centurion1211


Alright, I can buy into that...but here's something that kind of confuses me; if we're still using private insurance companies to acquire our insurance how is the government instituting 'death panels'?

No one has said the government is paying for any of these operations, insurance companies are paying for it. The way it's always been...the biggest difference now is that the government helps pay your premium.

So once again, the 'death panel' is in the private sector. Not the public.