Posted on 09/26/2011 7:50:20 PM PDT by Nachum
Patients with terminal cancer should not be given life-extending drugs, doctors said yesterday. The treatments give false hope and are too costly for the public purse, they warned. The group of 37 cancer experts, including British specialist Karol Sikora, claimed a 'culture of excess' had led doctors to 'overtreat, overdiagnose and overpromise'. Campaigners dismissed the report, saying it was wrong to write off cancer victims. 'I would hardly call this type of treatment futile,' said Rose Woodward, of the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
How about 'Sort of-Terminal'?
Oh, never mind - life is terminal - not even sort of...straight terminal
So when will we all be given warranties - like cars? If we run out of the Warranty we either buy a new body or take the bus....
When you lose God, you have nothing left.
When a society loses God, human life is no more important than a pig on a Bob Evans Farm.
That’s the ticket! LOL :>)
We are indeed living in strange times...unbelievable, isn’t it....
It used to be, life extension drugs for fatally ill patients were to keep the patient alive long enough, months, years, etc to hopefully find a better treatment, get them along long enough to get surgery or, hopefully, a cure.
It used to be, keeping patients alive and otherwise healthy, brought hope.
There is now the pit of despair and the stark reality that medicine just cannot provide what it used to. There is no hope. Hope and faith have left the building.
No longer is it up to the individual and his family. You will conform.
Unless, of course, you have lots of money and contribute generously to proper people.
If the Da*n Treatment COSTS can’t be justified, then Neither can the Govt. THEFT of making people pay Into the system their whole life.
It’s one or the other. Either PAY OUT on what was Collected/Stolen, or STOP STEALING it in the First Place.
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
P.J. O’Rourke
Isn’t it the purpose of cancer drugs to fight the cancer and extend the life? No one gets out of here alive but they should at least let us live as long as we can.
This is the central point. Without the inherent dignity of human life which follows from belief in God as Creator, there is nothing to stop the killing of (i.e., refusing medical treatment to) the weak and elderly. As Dostoyevsky so aptly put it: "If there is no God, then everything is permitted."
Without an absolute basis for ethics, which can only be rooted in the Divine, there is frankly nothing to stand in the way of mass murder. It was atheistic Communism under Stalin and Mao which was responsible for the slaughter of untold tens of millions in the last century, while a deranged, occultic Hitler who at times gave lip service to but despised the Church, was responsible for many millions of additional victims. To that list we can add Pol Pot and other atheistic despots.
Many injustices through the centuries have been committed in the name of Christianity, but the sum total is but a pittance compared to the sheer violence and murder which continues to this very minute by those who spit upon Divine Law.
To those who naively suppose that belief in God is not necessary to create a just society, I submit that what is now happening in England and Europe is exactly the sort of "justice" one can expect from a society which has rejected its religious heritage.
this is why this attitude will be made into the norm....not treating the disabled or the elderly or the frail or the developmentally delayed....
this is why ultimately, we will go back to using the death penalty more and more...as people see their kids not getting into college or not afforded good jobs, they'll grow to demand the murderers not be coddled...
ultimately....those who are fat, or who smoke, or drink, or don't wear seat belts etc will not be given health care...
Main reason I dropped out of HMO type insurance was because the “primary” doctor determines your next treatment. It is not as bad as a bureaucrat making your medical decisions but I hated the HMO arrangement. The HMO doctor just gave me pills for my pain problem. When I was able to sign up for a PPO plan, the doctor of my choice quickly determined I had gall stones causing my problem via an ultrasound test.
I would just dread getting cancer and be under socialized health care. Herman Cain is lucky Obamacare was not in place when he had bi-lateral cancer.
and isn’t it funny that the same govts who don’t want to pay to extend your life also are the ones that will arrest you or your family for home remedies.....
This is why China and Russia are going ot lead the way in curing diseases, thus getting all the glory and getting all the Nobel Prizes. They don’t want to kill their patients and they want the glory of having one of their citizens winning prestigious awards in medicine and science. Each time a Chinese or Russian scientist ends up curing a disease or discovering a cutting edge treatment, that is less prestige for our country.
Calm down. This wont happen.
This is a recommendation from a small group of cancer doctors, not a policy change. As the article shows, there has been an immediate response from cancer charities. One of the experts is the expert who diagnosed Megrahi, which wont help the report’s credibility.
It’s been happening more than you even begin to realize. Where do you think Keynesian economics, followed by most Western nations, originated? Find out where John Maynard Keynes had his citizenship.
The UK has the plague of collectivism in a very bad way and they’ve been spreading it around to the detriment of every nation where it is exported to. If we don’t break with them we are going to dragged down with them into complete and utter destruction.
This will be the grandchildren’s payback for the debt we’ve placed upon them.
If someone wants it, they can pay for it themselves and besides, I have a friend with what started out as ovarian cancer she has been treating with natural means and has been alive many years now and she is in no pain. Try that with chemo.
There may be better alternatives that are much less expensive.
Instead of stopping treatment, make the drugs more affordable. My wife is presently taking Tarceva for her lung cancer at a cost of $5000 per month. That is what is ridiculous. Rein in the drug companies,lawyers, $10,000 PET scans and such.
Careful, on here, thats communist talk. And probably antiamerican.
In cancer, the time between “not going to be cured” and dead is sometimes kind of long, and it’s important, because a lot can happen that is helpful to the patient and everyone else. It’s not futile to extend life without a cure, it’s a gift that allows people to get ready for check out time and do some important living.
Steve Job’s pancreatic cancer was not cured. He persisted for seven years, though, during which time he was working and being a husband and father.
Someone else I know went for every cancer treatment available and spent tons of money on it, instead of just laying down to die when she was terminal. Of course, she did die, but not until after she had seen her daughter graduate from high school. The extra time and money allowed her to reach that goal.
It may be hard to quantify monetarily the benefits of extra time, but perhaps it can save on probate costs if people do pre-death planning, mental health services for family members who had more time to prepare, generate extra productivity in the workplace by those patients who could work longer or prepare for their departure from the office.
Looking at cancer care that extends life merely as a medical expense with no benefit is way too narrow.
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