Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Will FDA's Rescission of Its Endorsement for Avastin Be the Beginning of the Obamacare "Death Panels" as Predicted?

The current administration has repeatedly stated that Obamacare does not include death panels. Remixx World! has countered those statements in previous articles (see Obamacare's "Advance Care Planning Consultation" (Pages 425-430 of the Health Care Bill -- Death Planning?) or Verizon Unveils Cloud Computing Patient Information Database & Decision Support Cycle System Using CareEngine® Technology), because I simply do not believe anything that the federal government tells me these days.

Needless to say, I'm not alone in my beliefs, because
some are reporting that the decision to drop the endorsement of the anti-cancer drug Avastin was based on monetary factors (i.e., it is too expensive from the government's perspective to provide the drug).

The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest...


During the debate, those opposed to the reforms cited Britain’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which decides whether new treatments should be made available on the NHS on the basis of cost effectiveness, as an example of the sort of drug rationing that amounted to a "death panel".

Source: London Telegraph


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