Camden New Journal - Letters: Patients

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 25 October 2007

Patients are dying now

• THANK you for the article on the disease multiple myeloma (Patients being refused a life-saving cancer drug, October 18).
It also helps to highlight a serious flaw in the way the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) evaluates proposed new drugs.
Hardly anywhere else in Europe are patients discriminated against in such a way and the bottom line is patients are dying owing to delays in getting much needed drugs.
NICE claims to be independent but clearly takes its direction from the Secretary of State, and these directions are very clear, it has to take into account the cost-effectiveness of proposed new treatments and many of us now believe that this is the overriding factor.
Is it right for a single body to decide the worth of a human life, especially when there exists no formal channel for doctors to appeal? The only option left for many affected patients is to highlight their plights in the press – barbaric at a time when patients and their families are struggling to come to terms with a serious illness.
Far too many controversial decisions demonstrate an urgent need thoroughly to review how NICE reaches its decisions.
I will be speaking to Frank Dobson, my MP, who created NICE when he was Health Secretary in 1999. I dare say he never envisaged a situation like today’s, but his comments should be most interesting!
A CARER and PARTNER OF A MYELOMA SUFFERER, NW5

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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