The Cancer Industry

The international tobacco industry makes about £30 billion in profits each year – a profit of approximately £6,000 per death from smoking.

Tripling tobacco taxes around the world could cut smoking by a third and prevent 200 million premature deaths by the end of this century, researchers claim. In the European Union, a doubling of cigarette prices would prevent 100,000 deaths a year in the under-70s. 

The new tax would encourage people to quit smoking rather than switch from more expensive to cheaper brands, and help to stop young people taking up the habit, say the scientists. They came to the conclusion after conducting a systematic review of 63 studies on the causes and consequences of tobacco use in different countries. In high-income countries, 50 to 60 per cent of the price of a pack of cigarettes is tax. But in low- and middle-income countries, tax makes up only 30 to 40 per cent of the cost. Tripling tobacco taxes would also increase global government revenues from tobacco by a third, from £180bn a year to £240bn, said the researchers.

“Globally, about half of all young men and one in ten of all young women become smokers, and, particularly in developing countries, relatively few quit. If they keep smoking, about half will be killed by it, but if they stop before 40, they’ll reduce their risk by 90 per cent.”

The cost of cancer

Allan Cowie, general manager for Macmillan Cancer Support in Scotland, has revealed that after fear of pain, money worry is patients’ greatest cause of stress. And demeaning work assessments ruling people are fit to work are also causing unnecessary suffering.


Many Scots, according to the charity boss, have been left with the fear of being labelled scroungers, meaning vital benefits go unclaimed. Cowie said:

“ We worry the stigmatisation of those on benefits may mean patients with cancer are too ashamed to claim. We have encountered cases of terrible poverty. We have heard of instances where people only worry about benefits when they face losing their home. Up until that point, they are more concerned with the dreadful worry of if they will live or die. We have also heard of cases where people have no food in their homes because they have channelled all their money into keeping a roof over their heads. This is not acceptable in this day and age.”

Cancer sufferers face additional costs of a staggering £470 a month – the same as many mortgage payments.

He said: “This is the average cost associated with a cancer diagnosis in Scotland. It accounts not only for heating bills and travel costs for appointments, and dietary needs, but also the reduction in their income. People often can’t work during treatment or rehabilitation. Cancer mounts a two-pronged attack on people’s finances.”

NHS rationing

What is the value of a few precious extra months of life? It's a very difficult question to answer, but if Scottish Medicines Consortium's is to be believed then, it is not worth £2.5 million.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in Scotland, with 2700 cases diagnosed every year. It kills two men every day. There are 19,000 Scottish men currently living with the disease.

Last October, Alex Salmond, the First Minister, signed up to a charter calling for better treatment for patients.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium has denied Scottish men a drug that prolongs life. It said the cost of abiraterone at £3000 a month did not justify the health benefits – even though it can extend lives by more that three months .

In a letter to the Scottish government, sufferer John Thomson writes "It is a disgraceful decision, cruel and unjust, that abiraterone is not available simply because of cost. How do you evaluate the cost of drugs against someone’s life?...This drug not only gives men an extra few months but also some quality to those last few months...It is unfair for some people to access the drug and not others. Money should not be an issue."

making cancer victims suffer

New research by a leading charity reveals that hundreds of cancer patients are living close to the breadline due to their illness, with 73% experiencing a loss of income and increased costs such as hospital travel and higher utility bills. Cancer patients in Scotland are skipping meals and worrying about losing their homes because of a drop in income and higher living costs.

Around 30,000 people in Scotland are diagnosed with cancer each year, costing many of them thousands of pounds.

Elspeth Atkinson, director of Macmillan Scotland said: “Cancer is an expensive disease to live with, but this research shows just how close to the breadline many cancer patients really are."

Research has shown that more than half of all terminally ill cancer patients do not claim benefits they are entitled to. Complicated benefits forms, a lack of awareness of entitlements, embarrassment or simply feeling too ill or emotionally drained, prevents many people accessing welfare benefits.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/cancer-patients-forced-to-live-in-poverty-1.1130821

Cancer of Capitalism

Professor David Cameron, an expert in breast cancer from Edinburgh University, said new treatments were increasingly being developed which targeted specific subtypes of cancer, helping make them more effective.

"These drugs are expensive. Some of that is the real cost of developing them and some of that is if you are only going for a subset of cancer then your total predicted sales will be less," Prof Cameron told The Scotsman. "The business model of the company will be that in order to develop the money to develop the drug your subsequent sales in the patent lifetime have to be sufficient to cover all your costs. So actually, the cost for rarer cancer is likely to be higher and not lower."

Why Bother?

A senior consultant surgeon has spoken out against screening patients for bowel cancer in Scotland’s most deprived areas...because they are likely to suffer from other serious conditions which could kill them anyway.

Angus Macdonald, consultant colorectal surgeon at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, said that in his experience in Lanarkshire, an area of high deprivation with one of the country’s lowest life expectancies, many patients with small tumours were more likely to die from other conditions before the cancer claims their life.

Health officials estimate that the NHS’s bowel cancer screening programme, for people between the ages of 50 and 74, could prevent 150 deaths annually. But Macdonald argues for some sections of the population it would not actually change the age at which a patient will die. “When you roll out a screening programme there is a very real possibility that you will identify cancers in the people who would normally have died from something else. We might operate on them and as a result we might actually shorten their lives.”

Research carried out by Macdonald, which is due to be published in the Journal of Colorectal Disease , adds weight to the principle of addressing the underlying determinants of ill-health such as socio-economic deprivation rather than of early detection and treatment of cancer as a principle health improvement strategy in such populations.

He said: “For the elderly time is precious. We’ll have some people coming up to their 50 years of marriage who have put together plans for over five or six years to save up for that once-in-a-lifetime holiday. When you tell them they have cancer they say they’ll cancel the cruise. I say, don’t. Go away and enjoy yourself if you can. It doesn’t matter if you have your operation just now or in two months, it is not going to make any difference at the end of the day.”

Hypocrisy by the banks

I read that David Lloyd, 62, was told he had terminal lung cancer in January 2006, his wife, Annette Edwards, contacted their bank, the Halifax, to let them know of his predicament and that he would no longer be able to work. They applied for a payout on an insurance policy, and for state benefits, but while they waited for the money to arrive they went overdrawn.
The bank and its agents telephoned the couple 762 times over seven months in what they say is aggressive pursuit of the debt . Their daughter, Stefanie Moore, 29, received 60 to 100 phone calls and two text messages .

The couple feel dehumanised .

Yes that what capitalism does to people . Socialist Courier wonders if the banks now in debt , begging for government bail-outs will ever be treated in such a shameles and heartless manner to demand repayment

work is bad for your health

Writing in the European Journal of Oncology, Prof Watterson, an expert in occupational health, said "In Scotland more people die from occupational cancers than die from road traffic fatalities, murder and suicide all combined."
He estimated that about 10% of all cancers were work related.While the issue is usually associated with older industries involving asbestos, Prof Watterson said carcinogens were present in diesel, pesticides, silica, wood dust and solvents. He added that Scotland gives a higher priority to road deaths and murders, which claimed about 1,250 lives in 2003/04, than it does to tackling work-related cancers.

Economic formulas not medical ones decide treatment

Previously reported here has been the inherent failure of the National Health Service due to the constraints of capitalism to offer full effective treatments . Another report confirms Socialist Courier's diagnosis .

Some of the UK's top cancer consultants warn that NHS drug 'rationing' is forcing patients to remortgage their homes to pay for treatment. The specialists accuse the government drugs advisory body of 'rationing' too severely and call for a "radical change" in the way decisions are made.

In their letter, the 26 cancer specialists say the decision shows how "poorly" NICE assesses new cancer treatments."Its economic formulas are simply not suitable for addressing cost-effectiveness in this area of medicine," they write. "We have seen distraught patients remortgaging their houses, giving up pensions and selling cars to buy drugs that are freely available to those using health services in countries of comparable wealth."

Defending its policy of restricting palliative medicines .

"There is a finite pot of money for the NHS, which is determined annually by parliament,"NICE's chairman said."If one group of patients is provided with cost-ineffective care, other groups - lacking powerful lobbyists - will be denied cost-effective care for miserable conditions like schizophrenia, Crohn's disease or cystic fibrosis."

Capitalism is at its terminal stage , time to apply euthanasia to such a heartless system .

nhs charges

A poll by Macmillan Cancer Support suggests nearly half of cancer patients in England are being forced to cut back on basic necessities in order to pay for their prescriptions.

Breast cancer survivor Amanda Whetstone says she regularly skips breakfast and lunch to save money to pay for her prescriptions.

"Although my cancer treatment - the surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy - has finished, I still need medication. As a result of my cancer I'm now on three different drugs. They cost me about £44 a month. That may not sound much to some, but I'm struggling financially. I'm now on statutory sick pay because I've been too unwell to work. My income is £360 per month and, quite frankly, I have barely enough money to live on.I budget for everything. I don't go out because I can't afford to socialise. I can't even invite friends over for a meal because I can't afford the food.I don't eat breakfast or lunch. The meals I do buy are ones that are on special offer.I can't afford fresh fruit or meat. I know that isn't healthy, but I simply can't afford to buy healthy food."

"Fighting cancer is hard enough without the terrible financial worry that comes with it.I feel penalised because I have a disease that the government doesn't consider should make me exempt from prescription charges."

health and wealth

We here at Socialist Courier have frequently posted stories that reveal the class link concerning health -- the wealthier you are , the better health you possess and the longer you live . Another report once again confirms this view .

The importance of money was illustrated by an ethnic breakdown of outcomes in the US. White Americans, who are on the whole wealthier and therefore more able to afford the insurance which underpins the US system, were up to 14% more likely than others to survive cancer.

Meanwhile the report states that the UK had 69.7% survival for breast cancer, just above 40% for colon and rectal cancer for both men and women and 51.1% for prostate cancer.

And "...there were also large regional variations within the UK, which were linked to differences in access to care and ability of patients to navigate the local health services. Both are directly linked to deprivation..."

What price a life ?

A cancer patient who was forced to pay out £3,400 per fortnight for the life-saving drug cetuximab has won his battle for funding , having previously been refused the treatment on the NHS , according to the BBC .

Originally ,the Scottish Medicines Consortium said it was not cost-effective because it could only prolong life, not cure him.

Preserving life for as long as possible should be the responsibility of the NHS , the patient is quoted as saying .

Maybe so , but under capitalism , there is always a price tag and a value placed upon a person's life . Not everyone is as fortunate as this patient was .

Poor health

Women from deprived backgrounds are treated differently and have a lower breast cancer survival rate than more affluent women , says a study

The charity Cancer Research UK studied nearly 13,000 patients from England's Northern and Yorkshire health regions. It found deprived women were less likely to be diagnosed in the early stages of disease, when treatment is most likely to be effective. They were also less likely to have surgery or radiotherapy.

The British Journal of Cancer study found that among the most affluent group, 40% had lumpectomies, which allow breast conservation, rather than full mastectomies to remove the breast. However, the figure among the most deprived group was just 31%.

They said that more women from deprived areas were likely to favour a mastectomy because it is a one-off treatment, whereas lumpectomy requires a course of radiotherapy, and therefore regular trips to a clinic, which can be difficult and costly.

The study also found that more than 22% of women from deprived backgrounds did not receive surgery, compared with just over 13% of more affluent women. Part of the reason for this disparity was due to late presentation, but the researchers also found women from deprived backgrounds were also more likely to have other health problems which made them unfit for surgery, or to turn down the option.

A slightly higher proportion of affluent women were seen within 14 days of referral by their doctor than women from more deprived areas. Women in deprived areas were less likely to be given radiotherapy and, on average, had a lower rate of five-year survival.

Dr Rosemary Gillespie, of the charity Breast Cancer Care, said: "The persistence of inequalities in treatment and outcomes highlights that key messages about breast health and screening are still not reaching those in deprived communities who need them."

Capitalism is a Cancer

Bucharest will witness a protest demonstration of a grisly kind today. The streets of the Romanian capital will be filled with cancer patients pleading with a government that they say has turned its back on them.

More than 370,000 patients have been diagnosed with cancer in Romania but only 76,000 are in treatment, according to official estimates. This year's budget for cancer treatment has been set at 336 million lei (£65 million), a fraction of the amount spent in other EU member states. The UK, with a population less than three times as big as Romania's, spent £4.3 billion on cancer in 2005-06. Many women with breast and gynaecological cancers who had had surgery and radiotherapy are unable to get chemotherapy.

In September, the government ordered a ban on newly trained doctors joining two-year oncology [ the study and treatment of tumors ] courses to qualify as specialists - the first EU member state to obliterate the specialty of oncology - replacing it with a 4 month course instead .

The government also introduced a new system for distributing drugs to cancer patients on 1 April. Previously, it had been handled by hospital pharmacies, but now patients can take a scrip from their doctor to a city pharmacy, and take the drugs at home. But the pharmacies are reluctant to supply the drugs because of bad experiences in the past with underfunded government schemes. The Ministry of Health has big debts from past years and they are sceptical that the government will pay this time . "Cancer drugs are expensive and no one wants to invest a lot of money in buying them and then find re-payments are blocked." . Thousands of patients were left without treatment.

Organisers of the protest in front of the Ministry of Public Health accuse the government of neglecting the suffering of cancer patients. They say ministers are withholding investment because they view cancer patients as economically unproductive.

Referring to the Minister of Health, Eugen Nicolaescu, a Federation of Cancer Patient Associations spokeswoman said :-

"He is an economist, not a doctor. He sees just figures and money, not human lives..."

And what do we read in The Herald .

A spokeswoman for the BMA in Scotland said:"It is no longer financially feasible to deliver everything to all people..."We need to have a sensible debate about rationing in Scotland in context of the Scottish health service."

While Dr Andrew Walker, health economist at Glasgow University, said:-

"...the Scottish Medicines Consortium, which guides the NHS on new drugs, already performed a cost benefit analysis to determine what should be made available to patients...As an economist I would like to see the same sort of model for the other 85% of the health service"