You never know when illness will strike and in my case; lightning struck twice. I am of course talking about my personal battles with cancer.
I am a survivor. However it left me with some side-effects for the rest of my life. Sadly for cancer, one positive side effect was my hunger to eradicate the disease for good.
Shocking new figures revealed the UK has the worst cancer survival rate in Western Europe. Currently, GP surgeries in my Bury St Edmunds constituency report treating 5% of all constituents, for cancer. Treatment for melanoma skin cancer in East Anglia is the poorest when compared to the rest of the UK. Quite simply we need to be doing more. Cancer does not wait for you to get treatment. The fight to eliminate cancer must always be one step ahead.
I have a passion for Life Sciences and for me, research is the answer to many issues. But sometimes we have to think outside the box. The Off-Patent Drugs Bill brought to the House of Commons on Friday 6th November did just this.
For the Bill intends to re-licence and make available, tested pharmaceutical drugs for many conditions, not only cancer but Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which have become outdated. These drugs include Tamoxifen and Raloxifene, drugs which have been proven to effectively reduce the hereditary risk of cancer occurring in the first place, by around a third. Some bisphosphonates have been proven to reduce the risk of breast cancer fatally spreading to the bone, by 28%.
It is sobering to think that this risk reduction of 28% to the spread of cancer, has been hailed as the biggest breakthrough in cancer survival in the last ten years. More worryingly, such treatments are often only available to patients on a postcode lottery; entirely dependent on where in the country they are treated and whether their doctor has the capacity to deliver these and other drugs. In making off-patent drugs like this readily available to patients, this Bill could deliver potentially life-saving drugs for as little as six pence a day.
Releasing off-patent drugs for commercial use will also empower NHS clinicians and cancer scientists. These drugs could become common place within cancer treatment plans and could encourage doctors to more readily administer them in place of more invasive or more expensive treatment options. For cancer patients, this Bill could be life changing as well as life-saving. Making available effective treatments can deliver choices to patients, where before the only choice would be to remove the diseased parts of the body.
The aspiration of the Off-Patent Drugs Bill is to deliver outstanding results for UK. That is why I have urged the Government to seriously consider accelerating and improving access to drugs for clinicians but most importantly, for the 3,790 cancer patients in Bury St Edmunds and thousands more across the UK.
Read the debate here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2015-11-06a.1289.0&p=25408#g1298.2