House debates

Monday, 27 March 2006

Adjournment

Herceptin

9:18 pm

Photo of John MurphyJohn Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

According to aSun Herald report published on 26 March 2006 entitled ‘Cancer expert demands new wonder drug for all’, the head of Australia’s largest breast cancer treatment centre, Professor Richard West, rightfully slammed the Howard government for dragging its feet on making available to all Australian women what is widely acclaimed to be the new breast cancer life-saving drug, Herceptin. The virtues of Herceptin for women with an early onset of HER2 breast cancer have been sung far and wide by all manner of professionals: specialists, breast cancer networks, support groups and, most importantly, Australian women. Yet such enthusiasm for the drug does not extend to the Howard government, which has steadfastly refused to list Herceptin on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

According to Professor Don Iverson, Dean of Health and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Wollongong, Herceptin is an ‘extraordinary new drug’ which specifically targets the cancer while having very few damaging side effects. While Herceptin remains missing from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, women will be forced to pay approximately $60,000 per year, putting it out of reach of most women. In a country as prosperous and lucky as ours, every woman deserves to be afforded access to a treatment which will give them their best hope of survival. Many women have demonstrated the lengths that they have shamefully been forced to in order to pursue their own will to live.

I am fortunate to have been approached by many constituents in my electorate of Lowe who have been, and still are, fighting valiantly to obtain PBS listing for Herceptin. I am especially grateful to have been approached by the many brave women who have truthfully bared the depths to which they feel they have sunk to obtain access to Herceptin. I have been told of women who have been forced to lose weight in order to reduce the cost of Herceptin. It is reported that by being wafer thin a woman would require less Herceptin in each dose, saving her tens of thousands of dollars. This is unconscionable.

In 2001, a successful national campaign was led by many tireless groups and individuals to ensure Herceptin was available free to women with advanced breast cancer—this after Herceptin was rejected three times by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee as not being cost-effective. It is a national disgrace that hundreds, if not thousands, of women with advanced breast cancer were required in 2001 to put their scarce energy into fighting for medical services that should have been unquestionably provided by their government.

Whilst it is refreshing to hear the Minister for Health and Ageing, Tony Abbott, belatedly proclaim that he would like to see Herceptin considered for listing ‘as soon as possible’, he has given absolutely no commitment to the women of Australia that Herceptin for early breast cancer sufferers will be listed. Indeed, the spectre of cost-effectiveness ratios was raised by the Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee as recently as October 2005. I resent the failure of the minister and the PBAC to pay sufficient regard to the human element in such considerations, including the observation that the cost of Herceptin is a small price to pay when its capacity to save many women’s lives has been proven beyond doubt.

I can only imagine that Minister Abbott’s ‘invisible hand’ is indirectly forcing the committee to pay closer attention to the cost-effectiveness of drugs rather than their propensity to save lives. What price can the minister put on a woman’s life? It is a disgrace that women with breast cancer have to put energy into fighting these types of battles with the government at the very time when they are most vulnerable. These women are our grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties and cousins. Surely they deserve better. What all of them have in common when inflicted with the disease is that they are not ready to die. Our health care system should be doing more for them—much more.

Some weeks ago I articulated my fears that Australia’s health care system was increasingly being moulded by the Howard government into one that can only cater for those who can bear the astronomical costs of treatment. I mentioned that it was time for the government to bring back ‘care’ into the health care system. The government is running a record budget surplus and clearly can afford to fund Herceptin. I stand up for my constituents tonight and demand that the Howard government make Herceptin affordable and accessible by immediately listing this life-saving drug on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.