During Breast Cancer Month Obama’s FDA Ponders Delisting Cancer Drug
October 27, 2010 | Filed Under Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, FDA, Free Trade, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, Liberals, President, Regulation, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
So you have Avastin, a drug used to treat breast cancer that has a record of extending the lives of sufferers for at least five and a half months, and it’s October, the month declared Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If you are the Obama Federal Drug Administration, what do you do? Apparently you look to delist the drug.
This October the FDA is trying to decide to delist Avastin because in keeping with its new Obamacare rationing impulses it has decided Avastin costs too much.
In September the FDA announced that it was going to delay its final decision perhaps until December on whether or not to take Avastin off the market for breast cancer patients. There was no clear indication of just when the decision would be made, but conveniently the decision certainly will be delayed until after the coming elections. As a result President Obama won’t have to worry about taking a drug away from breast cancer patients in the midst of an election cycle.
The calculation of skipping past the elections is hard to ignore.
Senator David Vitter (R, LA) has pointed out the “rationing” aspect of the whole Avastin debate. In a letter to the FDA Senator Vitter said, “Taking Avastin off-label for breast cancer treatment is essentially government rationing.”
Avastin has many fans. One young man even made a video in support of Avastin saying that the drug has helped improve the life of his mother who has been diagnosed as stage 4 metastatic breast cancer.
Christi Turnage has also started a FaceBook page and launched a petition to stay the FDA’s rationing hand.
Opponents of the drug say that its track record is not successful enough to justify the costs of the drug and the FDA has citied costs as being one of the reasons that Avastin is about to be delisted.
But in this month of breast cancer awareness month the specter of delisting looms for those that feel the drug works for them. The biggest question here is one of propriety. Is it a good idea that we give government the power to take away drugs that are successful for some people just because its costs too much? Should we give government the power to decide how much is too much to save lives?
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.
Leave a Comment
If you would like to make a comment, please register to do so. I hate to do that but there are so many spam-bots out there that deleting spam comments would be a full time job if I were to just open it up for anyone without asking them to jump through a few hoops first.
You must be registered and logged in to post a comment. Anyone can register. No registrant's information is kept, used, or sold. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Social Networking
Help the Soldiers!
American Genius
Our Founding Ideas- The Declaration of Independence
- The Federalist Papers
- The U.S. Constitution
- Debates of 1787
- The Anti-Federalist Papers
- The Writing of John Locke
"Governments are instituted among men,deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776
Recently Written
Featured Sites
What THEY Say:
Foreign News In English
Illini Alliance
Blogroll
of Thinking
Political Parties
Contact Us
Email Publius' ForumArchives
Links
Other Blogs
MilBlogs
Religion
Gun Rights
Education
Separation of School
from State
Radio Hosts
| Blog: |
| Publius' Forum |
Topics: |
| Politics, News, Commentary |
