Cancer Treatment Worldwide
Cancer industry and Big Pharma's effect on treatment and drugs in the United States of America is different from that of other countries’ largely because of its interaction with the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) .
The United States’ Patent Office also has its share in the problem. Pharmaceutical companies do not want to fund research into a drug that will not pass through the FDA usage guidelines if it will be off patent before it can be sold for cancer treatment , , . A new law, signed in July 2012 will change how the industry views this. While patent time constraints and FDA regulations will not change, this law affects the pharmaceutical companies’ ability to protect the manufacturing process by way of trade secrets. . There is one more key element in this “perfect storm” that American cancer sufferers face; the Insurance Industry is not willing to fund treatments using medications that are FDA certified for other medical problems, but not for the form of cancer that an individual patient has.
This can place a huge financial burden on patients and their families, just when they can afford it the least . The new medical care laws enacted in the United States since 2008 are an attempt to resolve these issues and make modern medical treatments as available and affordable in America as they are elsewhere in the world.
Medical Treatment in the U.S. compared to that of Europe and Mexico’s
Medical treatment in the United States is so different from that in Europe and Mexico that some people view it as a profit making conspiracy. Two examples given on the web site Liberty Crusade are those of Max Gerson and Harry Hoxey. Both Gerson and Hoxey used diet based treatment plans for cancer and diabetes, and both had documented successes. In spite of this, they both were challenged by the United States medical community and forced to stop practicing in America. They both had impressive support from notable people such as Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Prince Charles and Judge W.L. Thornton. Dr. Gerson founded dietary clinics in Europe, which are still thriving today . From a logical viewpoint, should it be the other way around? If the U.S. pharmaceutical industry has really eclipsed European and other countries’ pharmaceutical industry already, then why is the FDA, a U.S.-based and government-related organization trying to organize the shutting down of an allegedly revolutionary program that could potentially change the way how we combat cancer in exchange of huge loss in sales in the pharmaceutical industry as a whole and even bankruptcy of certain pharmaceutical companies, especially those that mainly rely on chemotherapy drugs and other traditional but not highly effective cancer treatments. It has been proven by numerous studies that the cancer-management strategies in countries like Mexico and those that are in Europe are so far more effective compared to those that are being practiced in the U.S.. Now, the question is why is it that despite these evidences, the U.S. government is still not making any significant moves to reform their current line of cancer-treatment strategies? Is it because they cannot afford to let the gigantic Big Pharma crumble down? Or is it because they simply opted to disregard the health innovations and findings from other countries thinking that their relatively more conventional treatment is still the superior cancer-management strategy? From the looks of it, it seems that it’s the
The American Cancer Society accepts the effectiveness of diet based cancer prevention when it states in its 2007 report that “as people in developing countries adopt western lifestyle behaviors, such as cigarette smoking, higher consumption of saturated fat and calorie-dense foods, and reduced physical activity, rates of cancers common in western countries will rise if preventive measures are not widely applied” . In spite of this, none of their treatment plans include diet modification for cancer sufferers. This does lead to the conclusion that Big Pharma effectively delayed and blocked the way to more conventional methods of Cancer treatment. Yes, they are indeed introducing newly-developed medications that are either entirely new or just a new generation of old drugs every once in a while but more often than not, these drugs are only intended to inhibit the manifestation of symptoms and not really intended to destroy the root causes of the problems which according to the American Cancer Society, are mostly lifestyle-centered and are therefore modifiable.
Drug companies occupy the niche between science and medicine. Science has made big strides in how the human body functions. Advances such as cracking the human genome is an example of this. Pharmaceutical companies have not advanced as quickly. This is, in part, because of their size. As smaller companies merged to become more financially competitive, they also became less nimble and flexible. These large corporations bought up smaller biotech companies and licensed the drugs those companies had developed. In this manner, they took advantage of the work done by others and pushed up prices along with their own profits .
In spite of a demand for new drugs, consumers around the world and in the United States are looking more suspiciously at large drug companies as the cost of medicine rises. The United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence was designed to recommend which new drugs should be reimbursed based not only on effectiveness, but also upon cost . In the United States, a recently enacted legislation was signed into law in July 2012 to provide a way to address these concerns . This was in response to a study done by the FDA who issued guidelines in accordance with The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in February 2012 Even though the legislation moved quickly through the process, it is yet to be seen if it will be effective in addressing the rising health care costs created by the high cost of medications. Will moves like this be really beneficial for cancer patients and those that are just at-risk of developing one? Most likely not because again, the government departments that supported the enactment of these laws are more profit-oriented than patient-centered. Instead of following a cost-effectiveness model in developing a future timeline of drugs, wouldn’t it be more practical to use an approached that is based on the needs and demands of the patients? Focusing Drug R&Ds on cancer-combatting and prevention drugs would really be a more beneficial move in treating cancer which has become one of the most common life-threatening health disorders worldwide; and in the long run, such move will surely turn out to be more cost-effective for both parties—the Big Pharma and the patients.
The public perception of the questionable practices used by drug companies has pushed governmental reviews of the drug industry. Even in Europe, which enjoys no pharmaceutical advertizing and lower drug costs, the Competition Commissioner launched an antitrust investigation along with unannounced raids on the companies because she was worried they would destroy sensitive documents. .
The FDA regulates what cancer treating substances are legal in U.S. even though they are available in many parts of the world. They also regulate what can be sold as a cancer treating substance for a particular type of cancer. The Insurance Industry regulates what off use medications and treatments they will pay for. In some cases, as in the diet treatments advocated with such success by Dr. Gerson. Diet clinics are legal in the United States, however they cannot be marketed as such and Insurance Companies will not pay for cancer treatments there. Some of the drugs used for cancer treatment are available in the United States, but for other diseases or forms of cancer. Physicians cannot prescribe them due to malpractice insurance regulations, and if they do, health insurance companies will not pay for them. Insurance companies also will not pay for “over the counter” medications as well, or for some treatments based upon the use of these medications. This limits the range of treatment plans that are readily available to American cancer sufferers. . In cases where a drug is available and FDA approved for a different disease, it needs to be recertified for cancer treatment. If it is beyond its patent life the drug companies do not want to pay to have it recertified for use as a cancer treatment, such is the case in the use of the diabetes medicine metformin. . This type of Drug Company vs. FDC vs. Insurance Company does not exist in most medical systems in other parts of the world.
The United States currently focuses its treatment plans on chemotherapy; however biopharmaceuticals are a rapidly growing and expensive pharmaceutical sector of the drug industry occupying 12.9% of the per capita money spent on medical care in the United States. These drugs violate general market trends in that they target smaller markets and often a designed to treat incurable conditions. They are more likely to be scrutinized closely under a cost versus effectiveness plan such as is found in the United Kingdom and cost more under France’s health care plan. .
Big Pharma in U.S. represents big money; the cost of cancer care is rising according to the National Cancer Institute and is expected to rise even more in the next ten years. In 2012 a significant portion of cancer treatment cost are due to chemotherapy. However, the use of biopharmaceuticals is changing that in America and abroad. In 2010 the treatment costs, including chemotherapy were $124.57 Billion by 2020 those costs are projected to rise to $206.59 Billion this is largely because of new biopharmaceuticals that target individual cancers, reducing the use of traditional across the board chemotherapy, but raising the overall costs of treatments.. Europe, once seen as trailing behind the United States in medical research and drug development is now headed to the forefront and one of the reasons is targeted medical cancer treatments.. These new pharmaceuticals reduce the use of chemotherapy, but raise the overall cost of treatment. Europe or Mexico to have additional proven methods to treat cancer that are not available in the United States because of FDA regulations or cost prohibitive on an individual basis because of Health Insurance limitations. These Cancer clinics in Mexico and Europe are accessible to many wealthy and influenced U.S. citizens who able to go and get their Cancer treated. Unfortunately, those techniques are not available, or cannot be advertised as cancer treatment and paid by insurance in America today. As a result of the rising cost of care, public suspicions and outrage at Drug Company many governments including the United States of America, the United Kingdom and France have instituted legislation, regulatory agencies and investigations into the practices and products created and sold by the giant drug companies. However, at this time American citizens must shop around and travel abroad to receive the best possible treatment for their cancer and licensed physicians who help them do this, or provide off use medications do that at the risk of losing their license, having their malpractice insurance canceled, being subsequently sued by the patients they are trying to help or any combination of the foregoing.
According to Jack (2008) “In the US, where patients until recently often paid the full price of their drugs and continue to be bombarded with advertising for prescription medicines, the companies have put themselves on the frontline. In Europe, where prescription charges are normally minimal and advertising is banned, there is still a sense of suspicion that companies are putting profits before people, whether using patients as guinea pigs or denying access to the poor.” This only means that even though there is a growing suspicion that there is some form of conspiracy or simply ignorance in the U.S. drug legislation and pharmaceutical industry, it is still unclear whether such scenario is only happening in the U.S. or in Europe, or internationally. What we know is that there are lots of ways how we can improve the cost-effectiveness of our current pharmacology-based cancer management strategies.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. have been and will always be one of the best among other countries’ in terms of productivity, cancer treatments, and drug research and development. The problem lies on the way how the U.S. regulates the research and development, and the delivery of cancer-treatment drugs. Our evidences show interconnected the U.S. legislation system and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is. For some reason, the FDA only approves the regulation and marketing of certain drugs for cancer treatment, particularly those that are based on chemotherapy, a relatively expensive form of treating cancer which ironically offers only a meek chance of survival. Alternative treatments are usually not supported by the FDA even if there are literatures that are published overseas that could prove the validity of those alternative treatments. It appears that the U.S. legislation system and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry have become so rigid to the point that they could not accommodate innovations anymore. This is where the drug legislation system and pharmaceutical industry in countries like Mexico and those that are in the U.K. differ. There, the regulation and delivery of alternative drugs are much more liberal. In a way, that’s like a trial and error approach in dealing with things. However, the important thing is that they have found alternative and more effective strategies in cancer management, a result that the U.S. will never be able to achieve, especially if it continues to rely on its current system of drug legislation and development.
Works Cited
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