The Stimulus Package, Health Care Reform, and Big Pharma Lobbyists
An Associated Press article today reported that the stimulus package included $1.1 billion toward research for the best treatments for numerous ailments. Topping the list were heart disease, cancer, pain, and hearing loss. Rather than funding research of drugs for these health problems, the money would fund research into determining the treatments necessary.
At issue is the “comparative effectiveness” of various treatments and tests. There will clearly be winners and losers in this contest. As federally run health care is looming on the horizon, the stimulus money will help choose some treatments over others, then the government will pay for the treatments. Enter, big pharma lobbyists. The article says the winner/loser questions will “drive fierce opposition from drug makers…who have a financial stake in the outcome. That kind of lobbying has left the nation with a scattershot method of determining best medical practices.”
Here is my interpretation and prediction. Over a billion dollars will be spent on studies that will supposedly find the best treatment protocol for many diseases including cancer. Congress will, as always, maintain oversight rights for these studies, since they control the appropriations and allocations. Pharmaceutical corporations will dispatch their lobbyists to Capitol Hill with instructions to make sure these studies result in findings that are drug based. Any attempt by researchers to report findings favorable toward use of natural, non-toxic, non-pharmaceuticals will be thwarted.
Now is a good time to write your senators and representative about integrative oncology. Ask them to become familiar with the advantages of complementary cancer therapy. Request that they commit to give a new strategy of integrative cancer treatment the highest priority as they enter the stimulus spending and health care reform debates.
July 2nd, 2009 at 21:25
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