Guardian: "Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure"

[mrfrapp]

A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.

Ophthalmologists around the world, on their own initiative, are injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin into the eyes of patients with wet macular degeneration, a common condition of older age that can lead to severely impaired eyesight and blindness. They report remarkable success at very low cost because one phial can be split and used for dozens of patients.

[...]

Avastin was first used on human eyes by Philip Rosenfeld, an ophthalmologist in the US, who was aware of animal studies carried out by Genentech that showed potential in eye conditions. This unlicensed use of Avastin has spread across continents entirely by word of mouth from one doctor to another. It has now been injected into 7,000 eyes, with considerable success.

[...]

Prof Rosenfeld said the real issue was drug company profits. "This truly is a wonder drug," he said. "This shows both how good they are and on the flip side, how greedy they are." He would like to see governments fund clinical trials of drugs such as Avastin in the public interest.

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1799772,00.html

[rodeodance]

1. It is wrong to say it is unlicensed (for eye use)--I is not approved by

some experts. Yet, many drugs are developed for one use and eventually get used for other uses.

........This unlicensed use of Avastin has spread across continents entirely by word of mouth from one doctor to another. It has now been injected into 7,000 eyes, with considerable success.

[megatherium]

3. off label use of drugs is common and legal.

but insurance companies might not pay for such use.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. For those who cannot get it..... for those who may need it....

http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcl-071.shtml



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* Vitamin C, 500 mg daily
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* Zinc, 80 mg daily
* Copper, 2 mg daily