Cancer treatment denied

last updated 8 January 2015

London

A breast cancer patient this week sued Britain’s National Health Service for refusing to give her a drug that could save her life. Elaine Barber, a 41-year-old mother of four, was told that prescribing Herceptin, a new drug that costs up to $50,000 a year per patient, was not “a cost-effective use of finite health resources.” Last month, though, a different patient was given the drug on the grounds that her status as a single mother of a disabled child rendered her case “exceptional.” In most E.U. countries, drugs are made available through public health systems as soon as they get an E.U. license. But in Britain, drugs must also undergo a cost-benefit analysis.