The Velcade Three
It's time to debate priority of health care dollars
What would you pay to help someone extend their life by two years? That in effect is the question facing Britain's Labour Party in the high profile case of terminally ill patients Janice Wrigglesworth, Jacky Pickles and Marie Morton, who suffer from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow. The three have pleaded with the government to provide government funded access to the drug, Velcade, which they believe will prolong their lives by two years for an estimated cost of $25,000 each.
It's easy for those of us on the sidelines to say yes to such a request, especially with the TV cameras playing up the obvious human drama but it's not that easy for governments.
Consider that in the last week alone Abraxis BioScience has brought out Abraxane, an improved version of an older cancer drug that costs $4,200 US per dose but has in clinical trials reduced the size of tumors. Genentech's new treatment for age-related macular degeneration, Lucentis, is reported to have shown 'miraculous' results but costs $1,950 US per dose. Health Canada announced approval of Tysabri, which has shown good results in the fight against Multiple Sclerosis but the cost is about $4,000 US per month, which is more than double the cost of more common MS drugs.
Is it realistic to expect government to provide funding for all the new therapies that can extend a person's life or help restore their vision or prevent the onslaught of a disease like MS? The question brings to mind the comment of analysts Barry Cooper and David Burcuson who warned that, 'there is no cure for death [and] the boundless pursuit of individual longevity paid for at the public expense is bound to produce national bankruptcy.'
After all, each week new, promising drug therapies come to the market but at a cost that is higher than the already sky-high costs of existing drugs, which is hardly surprising considering it costs between $500 million US and a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market. Add those increasing costs to the increasing demand of an aging population and you get an unworkable financial formula, which explains why a national Pharmacare plan was a non-starter for the former federal Liberal government and isn't on the agenda of the Conservatives.
We, as Canadians have never shown ourselves to be fond of realistic discussions regarding the financial limits of government-provided healthcare. It's never been difficult for political opportunists to paint anyone who even suggests that the financial resources are limited as being cold hearted. Yet no matter how often we suggest healthcare is not about money, it regularly is, which is why we have no publicly funded access to a variety of new technologies and drug therapies.
Just as the high profile case of the "Velcade three," as the press had dubbed them in Britain, has forced at least some realistic discussion regarding the state's ability to fund open-ended healthcare, we must demand the same discussion here. It's time to discuss what our taxpayer-funded healthcare priorities are and where our scarce dollars are going to be allocated. So far, that has proven beyond our capabilities and I see little hope for meaningful discussion as long as we continue to allow the debate to be hijacked by self-serving political agendas.
Copyright © The Velcade Three, 2010.