ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2008
Media influence on Herceptin subsidization in Australia: application of the rule of rescue?
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- The evolution of cancer therapies and their Implications for health technology assessment in Australia.Cost effectiveness and resource allocation : C/E · 2026Review
- Under careful construction: combining findings, arguments, and values into robust health care coverage decisions.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Children as voices and images for medicinal cannabis law reform.Monash bioethics review · 2021Review
- Personalized Cancer Medicine in the Media: Sensationalism or Realistic Reporting?Journal of personalized medicine · 2021Article
- Does Consumer Engagement in Health Technology Assessment Enhance or Undermine Equity?Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2020Article
- Policy Challenges for Organ Allocation in an Era of "Precision Medicine".Canadian journal of kidney health and disease · 2020Article
- Towards an Integration of PrEP into a Safe Sex Ethics Framework for Men Who Have Sex with Men.Public health ethics · 2019Article
- Access to High Cost Cancer Medicines Through the Lens of an Australian Senate Inquiry-Defining the "Goods" at Stake.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2017Article
- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on YouTube: Framing, Anchoring, and Objectification in Social Media.Community mental health journal · 2017Article
- Essential medicines for universal health coverage.Lancet (London, England) · 2017Review
- Societal perspective on access to publicly subsidised medicines: A cross sectional survey of 3080 adults in Australia.PloS one · 2017Article
- The media and access issues: content analysis of Canadian newspaper coverage of health policy decisions.Orphanet journal of rare diseases · 2015Article
- Regulatory withdrawal of medicines marketed with uncertain benefits: the bevacizumab case study.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2015Article
- Ethics, evidence and economics in the pursuit of "personalized medicine".Journal of personalized medicine · 2014Article
- Medicines and the media: news reports of medicines recommended for government reimbursement in Australia.BMC public health · 2013Article
- Consumer beware: a systematic assessment of potential bias in the lay electronic media to examine the portrayal of "PARP" inhibitors for cancer treatment.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2011Article
- Trick or treat? Australian newspaper portrayal of complementary and alternative medicine for the treatment of cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2011Article
- "No respecter of youth": over-representation of young women in Australian television coverage of breast cancer.Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education · 2010Article
- Are cancer drugs less likely to be recommended for listing by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee in Australia?PharmacoEconomics · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn August 2006, the Australian government announced that Herceptin (Trastuzumab) would be added to the national Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) of government-subsidized drugs, for treatment with adjuvant chemotherapy of HER2 breast cancer. Following initial reticence, the health minister responded to a campaign by patients and patient advocacy groups by announcing PBS subsidization which lowered the cost of a weekly dose from A$1000 to A$30. The cost to the government would be A$470 million over three years for treatment of an estimated 2100 women annually.
designWe analysed the news frames used in all direct and attributed statements (n=239) in television news coverage of the discourse preceding the Herceptin decision by the Australian government.
settingFive Sydney free-to-air channels between October 2005 and August 2006.
main outcome measuresNews frames or themes.
resultsOf five news frames identified, one ('desperate, sick women in double jeopardy because of callous government/incompetent bureaucracy') accounted for 54% of all reported statements. Government financial parsimony was framed as responsible for the women's plight, with drug industry pricing never mentioned. Claimed benefits of Herceptin often conflated cancer non-recurrence and survival and favoured quantification rhetoric which emphasized percentage increases in improvement rather than the more modest increases in absolute survival.
conclusionsNews frames invoking key tenets of the 'rule of rescue' dominated television discourse on Herceptin. Clinicians, patients, their families and patient advocacy groups invoking the rule of rescue can increase the likelihood of achieving their objective of gaining access to expensive healthcare such as pharmaceuticals. Rational, criteria-based public health policy will find it hard to resist the rule of rescue imperative.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.