36 The Jewish Herald • Friday, March 22, 2013 27 HEAL TH Grieving Husband Pushes Bill For Unproven Remedies MA R IA
Member of U.K. Parliament proposes bill to allow doctors to use experimental therapies CH E N G
LONDON — After the best- selling Irish novelist Josephine
Hart died from ovarian cancer in 2011, her husband was so devastated he often went to her grave to have breakfast. And even now, Lord Maurice
Saatchi describes his wife’s can- cer treatment as “medieval.” A member of Parliament, he’s proposing a bill that would al- low doctors to use experimen- tal therapies even if there is no proof they work. Hart and Saatchi were an oft-
photographed celebrity couple in Britain more than a decade ago. She produced plays in Lon- don’s West End and hosted po- etry readings featuring actors including Ralph Fiennes and Roger Moore. Her 1991 novel Damage was turned into a film
starring Jeremy Irons and Ju- liette Binoche. Saatchi, an advertising ex-
ecutive who sits in the House of Lords, acknowledges his bill was driven by grief at his wife’s death. After a diagnosis in 2009 that
her cancer was too advanced for surgery, Hart got chemo- therapy and radiation, which Saatchi calls “degrading and ineffective.” Though ovarian cancer is one
of the hardest to catch and treat early, Saatchi says Britain’s cur- rent law is a serious barrier to new treatments. Theoretical- ly doctors can be prosecuted if they try something that deviates from standard practice. His bill is aimed at encour-
aging new therapies by allow- ing doctors to try them, includ- ing those lacking evidence of ef-
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vidual politicians rarely make it into law, Saatchi’s proposal has raised a broader issue about Brit- ish health care: Survival rates for most cancers are worse than in other European countries in- cluding France, Germany and the United States. A report released this month said Britain ranked 16th out of 19 Western countries for ovarian-cancer death rates. Access to drugs is so poor the
government started a $300 mil- lion emergency fund in 2010 to try to get patients quicker treat- ment; the U.K. spends about half what France spends on cancer drugs. According to the Organiza-
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U.K., it is 81 percent. After the cancer drug Avas-
tin was approved for use in the U.S., it took nearly another year for it to become available in Brit- ain. For Tykerb, the delay was more than two years. Avastin is used to treat numerous can- cers including those of the kid- ney, colon, and lung while Tyk- erb is used to treat breast cancer in combination with other drugs. In a debate on Saatchi’s bill
in the House of Lords in Jan- uary, Lord Frederick Howe, a government health minister, lamented the contrast between Britain’s role as a world leader in health research and its lag- ging approval of new treatments for patients. “It still takes an estimated
average of 17 years for only 14 percent of new scientific discov- eries to enter day-to-day clini- cal practice,” he said. “This is not acceptable.” Several other members voiced
support for Saatchi, citing other problems that have slowed med- ical advances, including bureau- cracy and slashed budgets. Some experts suggest that
if Saatchi’s bill doesn’t make it into law in its current form, its key planks might be rolled into a government-sponsored bill, making it much likelier to suc- ceed. Saatchi has even been ad- vised by the U.K.’s top medical officer. “We’re very sympathetic to the points that Lord Saatchi has raised,” said Daniel Poulter, a minister in the Department of Health, during a televised dis- cussion with Saatchi. “We’d cer- tainly like to engage further.” Legal experts said current
British law should be sufficient to protect doctors who try exper- imental procedures as long as there is some reason to think they might work and the pa- tient agrees. But a High Court judge ruled in 1957 that doctors could be found negligent if they
used treatments that strayed from common practice, setting a precedent often cited in medi- cal-negligence lawsuits. In that case, the judge ruled that doc- tors must act in accordance with what the majority of doctors do, even if there are opposing med- ical views. According to National Health
Service records, the number of medical-negligence suits has jumped by about 30 percent since 2010. Though it is rare for doctors to be penalized for using new treatments, experts said many doctors are wary. “Doctors are very fearful that
if they do anything innovative, the lawyers will get them,” said Charles Foster, who teaches medical law and ethics at Oxford University. “There’s a culture of following guidelines where they think they will only be safe if they treat patients conserva- tively,” he explained. Foster said Saatchi’s bill could
be important in addressing doc- tors’ misconceptions of what the law allows. “It could change the zeitgeist of the medical profession and make them more willing to try new things,” he said. Still, some aren’t convinced
Saatchi’s bill would help speed new treatments. Dr. Karol Siko- ra, director of CancerPartners U.K., a network of treatment centers and dean of the medi- cal school at the University of Buckingham, thinks the pro- posal is superfluous. “If the doctor wants to do it
and the patient consents, peo- ple can do wacky things,” Sikora said, citing the alternative med- icine industry, where there is lit- tle evidence treatments work. He also said the bill could en- courage false hope among ter- minal patients. Saatchi doesn’t know wheth-
er his bill would have helped his wife. Ultimately, he said, it’s about giving patients and doctors new opportunities in the future. “This bill is not go- ing to cure cancer, but it will en- courage the man or woman who will,” he said.
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