Herceptin: Nanny Hewitt doesn’t know best
Read spiked editor Mick Hume's Notebook in The Times (London).
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Last month Patricia Hewitt announced that Herceptin, an unlicensed early breast cancer drug, would be made available to all women who might benefit from it, after a nurse threatened to sue her local health authority unless they paid for her treatment. Now she has intervened again, prompting another health authority to reverse its decision not to fund Herceptin for a patient. Health service officials say that henceforth no hospital trust will feel able to refuse the unlicensed drug to anybody. A victory for patient power, caring government and women everywhere? More like a self-serving stunt from a department playing politics with patients’ health….
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