Linda and the Hunsinger twins
Kalamazoo
So, there was this old house in the country, somewhat
run-down, owned and occupied by a sweet little old lady. It also was home to a considerable colony of
mice but, being intelligent mice, they contrived to coexist with the sweet old
lady without incident. However,
realizing that she was lonely, one day the sweet old lady brought home a cat
for companionship. Well, you can imagine
the result – death, destruction and terror in the mouse colony. So the mice formed a committee to suggest a
remedy, which quickly came up with the obvious answer – we’ll just hang a big
bell around the cat’s neck to warn us if it is close by. Then arose the obvious question: how in hell
are we going to bell this cat?
The first War on Cancer was declared during the
administration of Richard Nixon (roughly, the early 1970s). It was well intentioned, well-funded and,
based on the state of cancer science, well designed. As we all know now, it went next-to-nowhere,
owing to the fact that “cancer” was not a single-headed monster but rather a
hydra, with many heads, each of which had to be chopped off individually. Progress against cancer has indeed been made
since Nixon’s time but, as we all also know, not nearly enough.
As part of this early War something called
the President’s Cancer Panel was created, to keep our chief executive and the public at
large appraised of progress being made against our hydra-headed foe. Presumably there have been annual PCP reports
ever since – but this is the first one I have encountered (it appears in the NCI
bulletin). It treats of an important
question: how in heck can we “afford” to conquer cancer? Here it is:
Imbedded within this link is another link that will give you
the complete text – wordy, but non-technical.
Here is the gist:
New cancer drugs cost too damned much; so much, in fact,
that many patients must choose between health and bankruptcy. New cancer drugs may cost billions to bring
on line. Some new cancer drugs are well
worth their cost, but many simply provide a few more weeks of life. Drug pricing in the United States is an
inefficient amalgam of feeble market forces and bumbling bureaucracy. And nobody seems to know what to do about it.
So, it is agreed by everybody that everyone with cancer
ought to receive efficacious care – if that exists. Also agreed upon is the proposition that drug
prices ought to reflect efficacy, not cost to develop and distribute. The problem, of course, is obvious. How in hell do we bell this particular cat? How do we keep the drug companies solvent and
churning out new products - and at the same time assure that high-priced
remedies yield worthwhile results? In
fact, can we as a society actually afford to be healthy?
Damned it I know. What do you think?
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