Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19856

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Kent A
Not another magic bullet
BMJ 2000 Sep 9; 321:(7261):644
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118524/

Abstract:

disease from returning. Success would represent a real breakthrough.
So how should we view the new agent while we wait to discover if it has curative potential? The high cost versus low yield arguments were used against the taxanes. In the end the NICE committee declared that these drugs do work and should be available for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. But official approval does not equate with more money in the budget, and clinicians are likely to be faced with more difficult decisions with the launch of trastuzumab.
Cancer drugs that are effective for carefully selected individuals, but which are extremely expensive, can put a terrible pressure on patients and their families if they have to pay for them out of their own pockets. Some go deeply into debt, while others remortgage their homes.
“Do you think you’ve got a story?” asks the public relations man anxiously. “Is this a story?” I ask myself. Of course it is, but it is too complex to be told in soundbites. Tailor made cancer drugs are just what patients need. Eventually, the next magic bullet will come along, and, hey-presto, trastuzumab will get cheaper. Health authorities will decide that they can indeed pay for it after all. When they do we might be able to call it a breakthrough. In the meantime it is just a chink of light showing through the door.