Health Minister Sussan Ley and the medical profession are divided on which direction the $20 billion Medical Research Futures Fund should take. AMA President Brian Owler would like to see some of the money applied to new treatments such as Bariatric surgery for the obese which would save lives in the short term rather than all the money applied to futuristic research in pursuit of cures.
Originally, the Futures Fund was to be bankrolled by a co-payment on visits to the doctor but that is now being directed at lowering the Medicare rebate the doctor receives on bulk billed consultations. It is likely that this lost income will be compensated by each medical visit being accompanied by an out of pocket fee paid by patients.
Finding a cure for the wide spectrum of diseases that still ravage the community is a long haul job that costs a mint of money. There is certainly a case to be made for using a portion of the available funds to bring into play existing discoveries that prolong life but are not immediately available to sufferers because of the cost factor. This tends to bring into conflict the scientists who work in research laboratories and the doctors treating people at the medical coal face.
A classical example that exemplifies this divide would be the results obtained from the discovery of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer in young women. In a few short years of application, the rate of cancerous abnormalities of girls under 20 has halved - and the rate in women in the 20-24 age group has been reduced by 23%.
Discovering this vaccine was a world first and it cost a lot of time and money. Medical research is impossible unless the cost can be recouped by way of patent protection and this is reflected in the cost of the drug involved. The Cervical cancer vaccine was placed on the PBS and became universally available - and there is no doubt that it has saved a lot of lives. What is even more important, with further research it may serve to fully wipe out Cervical cancer and make it a fully preventable disease for future generations.
This vaccine needs to be given to girls before puberty to be most effective and that created a barrier in the early stages. Some parents had the strange idea that a vaccine against what they saw as a sexually transmitted disease would encourage promiscuity - and refused to have their daughters vaccinated. It was necessary to spend funds to overcome this obstacle and hence the costs involved in bringing any new drug successfully to market are wide and varied - but essential if the money spent on development is not to be wasted.
It all boils down to wise heads making the decisions to get the best results from the funds available. Once we have a medical breakthrough in the research laboratories that is only part of the equation. Overcoming obstacles to widespread use and creating the climate for public acceptance can be both complex and daunting. We need to put it all together and therefore the final outcome must be a combination of the use of the research fund to achieve that outcome.
Hopefully, scientists and doctors will not retreat behind the barricades and refuse to see the bigger picture. Twenty billion dollars will buy a lot of medical progress. In many cases, a fairly small lifestyle change can be amazingly effective in prolonging life and in others it takes a "Eureka " moment to change the course of medical history.
The most important thing is to select whatever delivers the best value for the money !
No comments:
Post a Comment