Journalism focuses on the UK NHS and where they need to be putting
their money including ME and CFS research.
Analysis: Why in an age of health cuts we need more government research
August 4th, 2011 | by Iain Overton | Published in All Stories, Views
from the Bureau
With unprecedented debt affecting many of the developed world's
economies, there is much concern about the impact of cost savings on
healthcare. In the UK the NHS needs to save =A320bn by 2015.
Where savings will come from is a source of deep contention.
But some reports have focused on the fact that the NHS is spending
unacceptable amounts on the cost of some of its medicine. Latest
annual figures show pharmaceuticals cost the NHS =A311.9bn in primary
and secondary care - almost 12% of total revenue. Cost-benefit
analysis of treatment, though, is a tricky subject.
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a good example. It is a very costly
disease. The estimated cost to the UK economy of MS is over =A31.4bn a
year. Of this about 8% was spent on the cost of disease-modifying
drugs.
Recently, however, the leading journal Neurology published a report
comparing two groups of MS sufferers. One group was on treatment and
the other was not. Not seeing a dramatic difference in the two
groups, the authors concluded that many disease-modifying therapies
(DMTs) in multiple sclerosis are far from cost-effective. Interferon
=E2-1a, interferon =E2-1b, and glatiramer acetate were seen to deliver
'modest health gains' at best.
'It is very unlikely that under current pricing and prescribing
patterns, DMT may be considered cost-effective for patients with
relapsing-remitting MS and secondary progressive MS,' the authors
concluded.
Some have challenged the methodology of this report, but it serves to
highlight a major issue. That of the challenge of finding drugs that
are both effective and in terms of costs, financially justifiable....
...The need for innovation
The seeming reticence to innovate and experiment in the NHS has been
highlighted in other areas. Sir John Bell, who led an inquiry into
the future of NHS genetics, has said: 'There has already been a lot of
innovation, almost none of which has been adopted by the NHS...There's
more than enough we could be doing here, but the NHS is completely
unprepared'.
And in The Times' letters pages there was a recent headline that ran:
'Chronic Fatigue syndrome needs more research'.
There is both a moral and an economic argument for the NHS to
prioritise and aggressively push research both in terms of funding and
in terms of pushing clinicians into this field.
Moral in the sense that more government-sponsored trials could help
find highly effective uses for older drugs for people afflicted by
terrible diseases.
And economic in that the overall cost to patient and state for these
old drugs performing new tricks would be considerably less than many
existing low-functioning disease modifying treatments.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is a not-for-profit
organisation that bolsters original journalism by producing
high-quality investigations for press and broadcast media.
The first of its kind in the UK, it was established in April 2010 with
a =A32 million donation from The David & Elaine Potter Foundation. It
was money well invested. In the year since it launched the Bureau has
secured over a dozen front-page stories and produced a number of
award-winning web, radio and TV documentaries. The Bureau works in
collaboration with other news groups to get its investigations
published and distributed. To date, we have worked with BBC File On
Four, BBC Panorama, BBC Newsnight, Channel4 Dispatches, Channel4 News,
The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Le Monde
and numerous others. It is similar to ProPublica in the United States.
The full story can be read here:
http://thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/04/msdrugevidence/
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