5 ms·

I agree with your sentiment, but that's a bit of a straw man you're building there. The FDA would require that those two extra months usually aren't spent suff

by mft_ 7y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but that's a bit of a straw man you're building there. The FDA would require that those two extra months usually aren't spent suffering unbearable additional side effects from the treatment, and it would also be fairly uncommon for such patents to be "in severe pain trapped in a hospital bed". In contrast, if you've got (say) three months to live, the prospect of an extra few months with a reasonable quality of life, if probably something many people would take.

zzzcpan 7y ago
I'm pretty sure two months is statistically insignificant in this context to even claim there are two months.
- mft_ 7y ago
  That can't be supported, given that the two months in question is only a median from a review (of FDA drug approvals for solid tumors from '02 to '14). https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-abstract/1891387 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-... You'd need to explore the data behind the individual approvals to comment on statistical validity. But without going that deep, you can be assured that the FDA is generally pretty conservative, and employs very robust statistical methodology.
- keanzu 7y ago
  More than 1.7 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2018, and more than 600,000 died. We don't know how many patients received the 72 drugs approved over a ten year period but we do know the potential customer base for the drugs is massive. Millions of people could have taken the drugs, you could easily get a statistically significant result.
DanBC 7y ago
> The FDA would require that those two extra months usually aren't spent suffering unbearable additional side effects from the treatment, I can't speak about FDA, but I can speak about NICE and the Cancer Drugs Fund. NICE was set up to look at the cost effectiveness of medications and treatments. They were refusing to recommend new cancer drugs. This was politically tricky, so the Cancer Drugs Fund was set up to provide novel meds. We spent over £1bn on it, and most of the drugs provided no meaningful benefit and caused harm. https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2097 https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2097

by mft_ 7y ago

zzzcpan 7y ago

I'm pretty sure two months is statistically insignificant in this context to even claim there are two months.

mft_ 7y ago
That can't be supported, given that the two months in question is only a median from a review (of FDA drug approvals for solid tumors from '02 to '14). https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-abstract/1891387 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/article-... You'd need to explore the data behind the individual approvals to comment on statistical validity. But without going that deep, you can be assured that the FDA is generally pretty conservative, and employs very robust statistical methodology.
keanzu 7y ago
More than 1.7 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2018, and more than 600,000 died. We don't know how many patients received the 72 drugs approved over a ten year period but we do know the potential customer base for the drugs is massive. Millions of people could have taken the drugs, you could easily get a statistically significant result.

DanBC 7y ago

> The FDA would require that those two extra months usually aren't spent suffering unbearable additional side effects from the treatment, I can't speak about FDA, but I can speak about NICE and the Cancer Drugs Fund. NICE was set up to look at the cost effectiveness of medications and treatments. They were refusing to recommend new cancer drugs. This was politically tricky, so the Cancer Drugs Fund was set up to provide novel meds. We spent over £1bn on it, and most of the drugs provided no meaningful benefit and caused harm. https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2097 https://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2097