Aside from the trauma and stress of getting a diagnosis of cancer, is the shock of the accompanying price tag. So much so, that a group of doctors wrote a forum article published online April 25 in the journal, Blood addressing this issue. This clearly highlights the fact that cancer is a Big Business — and we know how Big Business protects itself.
There are Some Honest Cancer Experts
In this forum article, the group of 120 cancer experts from around the world discuss the high cost of leukemia drugs, but emphasize that their concerns extend to many other types of cancer drugs.
In the United States, about 10% of patients fail to take prescribed drugs, mainly because of cost. According to the group,
This is reducing their chances of survival. Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients who cannot afford them.
The group intends to start a dialogue by organizing regular meetings with all parties concerned in order to address the reasons for high cancer drug prices and offer solutions to reduce them.
This is clearly a group of doctors that believe in the treatments they offer and are trying to make that treatment accessible to people who need it.
The corresponding author for the group is Hagop Kantarjian MD, from the Department of Leukemia at the University of Texas M.D. Andersen Cancer Center in Houston.
Cost of Cancer Drugs Skyrocketing
Cancer drug prices have almost doubled over the past decade, from an average of $5000 per month to $10,000 per month.
Eleven of the 12 drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last year for various cancer indications were priced above $100,000 per year, the experts note.
For example, the an original drug for leukemia, imatinib (Gleevec, Novartis), which was launched in 2001 at a price of $30,000 per year, has had a huge price hike; in 2012, it cost $92,000 per year.According to the report,
This is despite the fact that all the research costs for imatinib were accounted for in the original price, the experts points out, and that since its launch, the drug has been approved for other indications, so the number of patients taking the drug has increased dramatically. There have been numerous appeals by patients and advocates to lower the price of imatinib, but to no avail.
For a chronic leukemia patient taking a drug of this kind, the 20% copay amounts to around $20,000 to 30,000 per year (about a quarter to a third of an average household budget)!
This is resulting in financial ruin for some patients; medical illness and drug prices are the single-most frequent cause of personal bankruptcy, the group notes.
Billion Dollars for Developing New Drug is Myth
Dr. Kantarjian said,
These high prices were shocking… especially because I was intimately involved in the development of all 3 of these drugs, and I know that the cost of development of these drugs was not as high as industry claims they are… The widely quoted estimate of $1 billion for developing a new drug, taking into account the prototypes that fail on the way and infrastructure and salaries, is a myth… The true cost is only about 10% of that — around $100 million.
Additionally, take a look at this chart to see the cost of cancer drugs in the United States compared to other countries. IT is shocking to see that here in the US, we pay much much more for the same drugs.
Cancer is Another Big Business
With profit potentials from these newly developed drugs, and old ones that are allowed to have the price raised exponentially, it’s clear that a cure will not be found any time soon. The War on Cancer has been waged for the last 35 years and is clearly, so profitable, that it will go on indefinitely.
As with all Big Business, the average person loses and the few on top win, with the help of the conventional medical establishment and the government.
In, fact, this study recently published in the journal Health Affairs, found that cancer patients were 2.6 times more likely to declare bancruptcy than those without cancer.
If You Are Confronted With Cancer
Getting the correct diagnosis is of the utmost importance and conventional medicine is pretty good at that. Getting all your options for conventional treatment is also important. If you are interested in alternative treatments for your particular cancer you might start here:
Of course there are some questionable procedures out there so I would be VERY careful about what you decide to do.
Some alternative treatments actually become the norm after several years. For instance, in the 1980’s my father had prostate cancer. He went to Seattle to a doctor who was the only one doing the radioactive seeding, instead of having radical surgery or radiation to the entire area. This was very successful for my father and saved him having other organs irradiated. At the time it was still experimental, but now, it is a common treatment option for that type of cancer.
Prevent Cancer By Eating Real Food
Of course the best thing to do is to eliminate all the toxic and dangerous additives, GMO’s, pesticides, and hormone disruptors from your diet. Eat food that can go bad, but eat it before it does.
Do you know anyone who had cancer and sought out alternative treatments? Leave a comment and let me know!