Letter from David Herman, Executive Director: The Seniors Coalition
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Mr. Andrew Dillon
N.I.C.E.
Sent by email to: Nice@Nice.org.UK
June 28, 2007
Dear Mr. Dillon,
I am writing to express the concern of 4 million members of the Seniors Coalition in the US to your recent recommendation on treatment for Macular Degeneration. We have received Medicare approval for reimbursement of these life altering drugs in the US and are terrified of the example the UK is setting in the prevention of a disease that will hit epidemic proportions in the next two decades.
We are stunned to read that N.I.C.E confirms the efficacy of anti-VEGF treatments and then refuses to pay for the very treatment that you have evaluated as a new hope in the prevention of blindness from MD.
The cost to the UK of supporting the needs of people going blind when they could have been helped will far out pace any savings on drugs. With no value assigned to the lost contributions of these people (and their contributions have great value) the loss will be horrible and the geometric growth of this loss will be seen more clearly with every year that passes. 20,000 people a year will go blind in the UK from MD. Patients will soon start to source black market drugs and treatments in other countries if they will not be served by their own government. This will just add to the societal cost of this decision. Please take this comment period as a time to reevaluate this decision. It will cost less money to approve these medicines and help your constituents than to begin a life long expensive care effort on their behalf.
Decency and humanitarianism are joined here with good medicine and cost efficiency. One change of direction can save thousands of patients and care givers from this horrible fate.
Respectfully yours,
David Herman
Executive Director
The Seniors Coalition
