The Herceptin fraud

Have you heard about Herceptin, the new wonder drug that cures breast cancer early? Well, it doesn’t exist. Oh, there’s a drug called Herceptin alright, and it is used to treat cancer. However, it’s only been shown to be effective at reducing the recurrence rate – after you’ve been cured by other methods, and the published data only cover a year of treatment so we’ve no idea how long the effect might last. Where, then, does this furore over the drug come from, and why is it so strong that women are going to court to demand the drug? The Guardian has a shrewd idea.

Lisa Jardine was at home recovering from chemotherapy one evening last May when the phone rang…
“Halfway through the following week, the phone goes at home,” says Jardine, professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London, writer and well-known television presenter. “It’s a really nice woman. She says to me, ‘I read about you in the paper and I gather you’d like access to Herceptin and you can’t get it.’”
By now, however, Jardine had decided that she did not want the drug. “I said, ‘No – that’s not the case with me. I have decided not to have Herceptin.’
“She said, ‘Even if you don’t want it yourself, would you come and talk to some of our seminars because we’re running a big campaign to promote Herceptin? Either we could find funding for Herceptin or, if you really don’t want it or decide against it, there would be fees for appearances.’
“I said, ‘Could you tell me where you are from?’ She said, ‘We work for Roche.’

That’s right – the manufacturer was offering to pay Jardine to fuel its advertising campaign. A campaign, be it noted, to encourage the use of a drug outside the areas in which it has been shown to work. Because Herceptin is available in the UK and is being prescribed. But it’s only being prescribed where it will be effective – not everywhere that Roche thinks that it can make money. Herceptin will work in only 20% of women, and its side effects include heart problems including heart failure.

Apparently, they’ve forgotten that the UK health market doesn’t work like the one in the USA (where you can buy any drug you like, more or less). Or perhaps they want to turn the UK into the USA. It’s rather worrying either way.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 11:08am on 29 March 2006
Category: Science, Struggling, General