Please help our sisters in the U.K.--sign their petition!

LaurelS

You may know that patients in the U.K., where they have socialized medicine, metastatic Her-2neu patients who have progressed on Herceptin are being denied access to Tykerb, known as Tyverb in the U.K., because the drug is considered by their national panel that oversees these decisions, the National Institute for Health Effectiveness (NICE), to be too expensive.  http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/03/05/uk-says-tykerb-isnt-worth-cost-even-with-12-free-weeks/  Tykerb, as you all know, can be a life extending drug.  Such acts of placing a monetary value on the lives of women may be coming to the U.S. in the all too near future should we adopt a system similar to the one used in the United Kingdom.

A grass root initiative by women just like you and me has begun in England to place pressure on their government to extend treatment with Tykerb to metastatic breast cancer.  The link below is to their petition which they are hoping will circulate the world with signers from many nations.  Won't you please take a moment to fill out the petition?  After you have signed it, will you pass it on to as many friends and associates as possible?  Remember, their fight may be our fight very soon.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/tyverb/

LaurelS

Diane,

I share your concern and agree we have "opened the door" to socialized medicine in the U.S.  One young woman in the U.K. who had a subclavian node become cancerous while on Herceptin was removed from all treatment and told to wait to see where it turns up next!  

Appalling!  This has women in the U.K. moving to Ireland to receive Herceptin and other medications to prolong their lives.  Tykerb as you saw on the post above is being universally denied all Her2 patients in the U.K. because it isn't "cost effective!"  

Have you noticed the recent drum beat in the media regarding the efficacy of mammograms?  The newest debate is whether mammograms are cost effective given that for every 1000 mammograms performed only 1 cancer is detected.  Now the push is to stop having routine mammograms because of the "discomfort" associated with them.  You see the clever lie being planted here?

As a woman whose life was saved by her routine annual mammogram, I believe they are absolutely invaluable.  But then, I guess my life isn't worth the cost of a mammogram!

LaurelS

Diane,

I share your concern and agree we have "opened the door" to socialized medicine in the U.S.  One young woman in the U.K. who had a subclavian node become cancerous while on Herceptin was removed from all treatment and told to wait to see where it turns up next!  

Appalling!  This has women in the U.K. moving to Ireland to receive Herceptin and other medications to prolong their lives.  Tykerb as you saw on the post above is being universally denied all Her2 patients in the U.K. because it isn't "cost effective!"  

Have you noticed the recent drum beat in the media regarding the efficacy of mammograms?  The newest debate is whether mammograms are cost effective given that for every 1000 mammograms performed only 1 cancer is detected.  Now the push is to stop having routine mammograms because of the "discomfort" associated with them.  You see the clever lie being planted here?

As a woman whose life was saved by her routine annual mammogram, I believe they are absolutely invaluable.  But then, I guess my life isn't worth the cost of a mammogram!