Death, drugs and red tape

Over the next few weekends, the gardens of 23 stately homes will be opened up to several thousand sponsored fun-runners who, demonstrating the typically huge generosity shown towards cancer charities by the British public, will raise £2.5 million for oncology research. Elsewhere, the stalls at village shows will heave with home-baked cakes, thousands will empty their lofts to send surplus possessions to Cancer Research shops, and many more will be stuffing ‘pinkie rings’ on to their fingers and toes in order to support work on breast cancer. In all, Britons last year raised £302 million for cancer charities, far more than any other country in Europe.

As a result of their generosity, the British public can bask in the warmth of knowing they have helped to extend many lives. Perhaps Brigitte from Malmo will send a thank-you letter, Jose from Bilbao a card, and little Anders in Zurich a drawing of a reindeer. They are all worthy recipients of our charity, of course. It is just a shame that British cancer-sufferers will have to wait another year or two to benefit from the same treatments which are already saving lives elsewhere in Europe.

The backwardness of cancer treatment in NHS hospitals was brought to light last week by the case of Barbara Clark, a Somerset nurse who won an appeal against the refusal by Somerset Coast Primary Care Trust to treat her with Herceptin. Although the drug has been found to extend the lives of women with advanced breast cancer by 50 per cent, the trust had declined to prescribe it on the grounds that it is not licensed for use within the NHS. Yet it is five years since Herceptin received a licence from the EU’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, a body set up to provide a single system of safety regulation for all drugs used in the EU.