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New CANCER drugs add little to life expectancy--why |
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Big PhARMA
wants us to improve their bottom line. The article below is advertising paraded
in academic clothes. The main reason for the increase in life expectancy comes
from the reduction in MI and strokes. A person who smokes a pack a day over his
lifetime has over doubled in any given year of having a heart attack. Cigarettes
shorten the life of a smoker 14 years compared to nonsmokers.
Corresponding to the increase in longevity is a reduction in the percentage of smokers.
Smoking has gone from nearly 50% for male adults in 1950 to 26 percent. Drugs
have made little difference. The best treatment for high blood pressure
is diaretics, available and used 50 years ago. Statins which lower cholesterol
have little impact upon mortality. And as for cancer treatment, 90% of the cures
are brought about through surgery and radiation (published in BMJ) article. A
few cancers are successfully treated with drug (but they are not the most common ones), and chemo therapy typically produces
a only modest increase in life. The most significant improvement has come through
treatment of MI and strokes with clot busting medications—but this is a one-time treatment during the event. Guess
who is the biggest advertiser in the Washington Post? Any wonder why they have
published this bull shit. In the footer is Some
of his [author’s] previous research has been funded by unrestricted grants
from the pharmaceutical industry. By the way, the presidential branch spends
over $1 billion per year of federal funding on promoting its neoliberal agenda—done through appropriations of the various
departments. Our press system is a business first. The article below is paid
for advertising of big PhARMA published as informative reporting--jk. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/10/AR2007071001468.html Yes, New Drugs Save Lives By Frank R. Lichtenberg Wednesday, |
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A typical baby born in this country in 1900
was expected to live to about age 45. Today, life expectancy at birth is about 78 and climbing. Americans are living longer
and healthier lives than ever before. But we have never been more concerned about the risks and costs associated with new
prescription drugs and medical devices. Rising health-care costs and safety problems
with FDA-approved products such as the painkiller Vioxx, drug-coated stents and implanted defibrillators have led some to worry
that recent medical innovations may be doing us more harm than good. The debate over the relative speed (and caution)
with which new medical products should be approved has crystallized in Congress as it crafts legislation reauthorizing the
Prescription Drug User Fee Act. Since 1992 the act has been a critical funding source for the Food and Drug Administration. Lawmakers should be careful to balance safety and cost concerns, and additional
regulatory burdens for product developers, with benefits to patients -- specifically, the measurable impact that new medical
innovations have on Americans' longevity and quality of life. How have medical innovations affected American
health? In a study the Manhattan Institute is releasing today -- "Why Has Life Expectancy Increased More in Some States
Than in Others?" -- I explain that incremental medical innovations, particularly the use of newer drugs, have played a major
role in increasing American longevity in recent years. I began by looking at the interstate variation
in life expectancy. Most Americans would probably be surprised to discover that, on average, residents of Hawaii (81.3 years) and Minnesota (80.3 years) lived six or seven years longer than residents of Mississippi and Louisiana (74.2 years). And while U.S. life expectancy increased by
2.33 years from 1991 to 2004, some jurisdictions -- the District of Columbia (5.7 years), New York (4.3 years), California (3.4 years) and New Jersey (3.3 years) -- led the way, while others, such as Oklahoma (0.3 years), Tennessee (0.8 years) and Utah (0.9 years), trailed the national average by significant margins. (Between
1991 and 2004, life expectancy in Maryland and Virginia increased by 2.5 and 2.6 years, respectively.) To find out why this longevity "increase gap"
exists, I examined several factors that researchers generally agree affect life expectancy, including medical innovation,
obesity rates, smoking and HIV-AIDS infection rates. While each of these factors had an impact on longevity, the most important
factor was medical innovation. In particular, I found that longevity increased the most in those states where access to newer
drugs -- measured by their mean "vintage," or FDA approval year -- in Medicaid and Medicare programs has increased the most. According to my econometric model, about two-thirds
(63 percent) of the potential increase in longevity during this period -- the increase that would have occurred if obesity,
income and other factors had not changed -- can be attributed to the use of newer drugs. In fact, for every year increase
in average drug vintage there was an almost two-month gain in life expectancy. Increasing access to newer drugs was not associated
with above-average annual spending on health care; and the use of newer medicines seems to have increased labor productivity
(output per employee) by about 1 percent per year, perhaps because of reduced absenteeism from chronic ailments. Overall,
my findings contradicted the common assumption that advances in medical technology automatically result in increased health-care
expenditures. Congressional debate over the Prescription
Drug User Fee Act is a microcosm of the national debate over the appropriate balance between safety and rapid access to new
and sometimes very expensive medical innovations. While this debate is complex, my research indicates that the best way to
achieve sustained improvements in health, longevity and productivity is by continuing to support policies that encourage medical
innovation and the new medical goods and services it produces. By Frank R. Lichtenberg is
a professor at Columbia University School of Business, and he has been in the pay of big PhARMA. |
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There are oodles and oodles of reports about big PhARMA acting not in the
public’s interest—only very few of them are deemed news worthy. A
few of the articles published by the industry website at www.fiercepharma.com and also for www.pharmalot.com Spotlight: At http://www.pharmalot.com/news/topic/European_Union/ the news is similar: Slimming down is least of U.S. health concerns Resarchers charge Merck misrepresented Vioxx data The rules dictate performance: When the principle standard by which
top executives is measured is profits these results follow. |
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