Avastin, used off-label, may have been tainted when it was divided into tiny doses
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comEye injections of cancer drug tied to blindness
Seeded on Thu Sep 1, 2011 1:32 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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It's all about saving money. Just wait until the government starts administering health care under Obamacare. Wait for the shortcuts and the rationing. An article the other day shows that about 50% of hospitals admit to using gray market drugs due to shortages and to save money. I expect things will only get worse as money gets tighter.
Where have you been. The insurance companies already ration care.
Lovely way to inject politics in here..whee! Not really.
I'd give my right eye for a good treatment for macular degeneration.
I can see where you are going with this.
The devil seems in the details.
I would imagine injecting anything into your eye might risk blindness. If it treats a cancer that will eat half my face and then kill me, then I think it's a sound trade off. If I could of taken a pill for the cancer then I'm pissed off.
This is a heinous act, for the manufacturer to know their product is being used in an inconsistent manner from the dosage instructions, and not provide a dose for ocular use and insure sterility, is completely reprehensible. Large pharmaceutical companies have continually served us up as a sacrifice to their god, money and greed. All I can say is "an eye for an eye", literally.
The title of this article is completely misleading. It leads you to believe that the problem is with the drug Avastin, which from the article does not appear to be the case at all. The problem is with pharmacies contaminating the drug.
The manufacturer cautions against using the drug in the eye since it has not been formally tested or approved by the FDA for this use. The drug company has done nothing wrong. The fault here seems to lie with those who prepared the smaller doses for not maintaining proper sterility as well as with the doctors using the drug off label. You can not hold the drug manufacturer accountable for off label use that they have actively discouraged. They make a different drug for treating macular degeneration. Doctors and the VA tried to save money by using the less expensive drug that was not approved for treating the disease. While many drugs are used off label, manufacturers are specifically banned by law from marketing drugs for an off label use. Had the manufacturer sold the drug in the smaller doses for use in the eye they would have been breaking the law. The only thing you can question is why the manufacturer has not conducted trials of Avastin for use in treating macular degeneration. However, since they already make another drug for treating the disease that has proven effective, it is understandable why they would not go to the expense of conducting the additional trials to compete with their own drug. Even if they did conduct the trials, it would take years to get Avastin approved by the FDA for this additional use. Also, the cost of these trials would need to be recovered in the price of the drug, so it would drive up the cost of Avastin in the process.
You apparently don't know what "off label" use means. The doctor makes the decision.
If they are using it for off-label use and a possibility of contamination is caused by separating it out, then it should be approved or not approved for this use and single-use vials developed.
A drug approved by the FDA to prevevent blindness....causes blindness???? I just can't see it!
Whoever says it is safe should first have an injection themselves... or shut up.
This display of unmitigated whoring greed by the executives at Genentech just begs for government regulation of the pharma industry. The lower-cost drug works just as well, but the company makes no effort to get it labeled for use in the eye. Thus people try to find workarounds that cause a few infections (out of 2 million doses administered).
Some pharmacist screwed up. Don't blame the doctors or drug companies
Also, off label use is extremely common, and not a bad thing. If a company markets a drug for one use, and it is selling well, how can you ask them to pony up 100 million dollars to run another trial? For what, to get an additional FDA indication for something that dr's are already prescribing for, and for which it is already working well?
Alarmist media at its best...
The problem here is contamination of the drug, apparently not the drug itself. This is carelessness on the part of the pharmacies dividing the drug and whoever else it dividing into smaller dosages. Hospitals, clinics and doctors offices and apparently pharmacies all need to clean up their act. Mostly it means washing their hands and any containers or tools they use need to be properly sterilized. Some hospitals have cut their infection rate to less that one percent by installing video cameras to prove staff, nurses and doctors are not washing their hands as prescribed. Additionally their uniforms need to be washed daily and changed. And, cleaning staff need to clean bed frames, doors. and other areas with care and proper effective chemicals. One in ten persons going into a hospital today is made further ill by infections they contact in the hospital. That is an outrageous number. WWW.Public Citizen.org, and www.RID.org are two organizations that have been working to reduce these types of infection for years. Join them and hold your hospitals, clinics and other medical services accountable.
I wonder if this is related to astaxanthin, which I take for eye protection and general antioxidant properties. Stick with natural substances, and don't inject them into your eyeballs
My Mom received numerous injections of Avastin for her macular degeneration and it saved her vision in that eye. This isn't a problem with the drug, it's the careless division of the vial.
What's ridiculous is that the drug company doesn't provide Avastin in the correct doses for the injection treatment, and that a drug that is identical in effectiveness that is in the correct doses is of course 40 times more expensive.
Welllll,
WHAT!
A!
SURPRISE!
I don't know what to think about this topic. We all know what cancer drugs do to the human body, don't know if I want it injected into my eyes. I think it would affect not only your eyes but your sinuses, brain, and nervous system. I would have to think long and hard about this treatment.