Thursday, December 16, 2010

Obama's Death Panel Tells Seniors Suffering from Breast Cancer: Go Ahead and Die Already

Remember the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, the controversial head of Medicare and Medicaid? Just days after his appointment, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance warned that, for the first time in history, FDA-approved anti-cancer therapies might not be covered by Medicare.

Today their predictions came to pass.

And legacy media is silent. Utterly and completely silent.

On Dec. 17 the Food and Drug Administration is expected to take the radical step of revoking approval for an advanced drug in the treatment of one of the country's most deadly diseases... [and] the effects on breast cancer patients will be devastating. Some 17,500 American women are prescribed Avastin every year. Many will face shorter, more painful lives because of the FDA's decisions.

...Despite all evidence to the contrary, the advisory committee claims its recommendation had nothing to do with Avastin's cost... However, many American women are getting something priceless in return for those dollars: life and vitality. In one clinical trial, nearly 50% of patients receiving Avastin witnessed their tumors shrink. Another study found that patients receiving the drug in conjunction with chemotherapy lived "progression-free" twice as long as patients without it.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance have been vocal in their opposition to these actions. And legacy media is silent.

Shouldn't these decisions be left to the families and their doctors? Apparently not, thanks to the one-size-fits-all Obamacare program.

Worse still, this is only the beginning. Rationing and death panels are very real, despite the propaganda asserting otherwise. Berwick himself, the most powerful man in all of medical care, has plainly stated that "it's not a question of whether we will ration health care [but] whether we will ration with our eyes open."

40,000 American women die each year from breast cancer. And Avastin is often their last hope.

Now, liberals: what would you call the government bureaucrats who arbitrarily decided to stop paying for this drug? I mean, besides a "death panel"?

And this is only the beginning. Obamacare doesn't kick in for real until 2014. And legacy media is silent.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

4 comments:

astonerii said...

"Shouldn't these decisions be left to the families and their doctors?"

As long as government is paying, no they should not. This is exactly what is needed to start waking up people to the dangers of government meddling where it has no right to be meddling. Right now medicare is popular because seniors get everything they want, but we cannot afford to give them that. medicare needs to be demolished, the sooner the better.

mudphud said...

Avastin does not increase overall survival and it costs ~$100,000 per year. It shrinks the tumor. Who cares about dying with a smaller tumor?

Anonymous said...

"He who pays the piper calls the tune."

Oh yeah, they don't teach that kind of thing in govt. schools anymore.

So I ask again...

http://cbullitt.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/128939879582490140.jpg

Anonymous said...

welcome to the NHS, isn't it NICE?