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Avastin, the best selling drug to treat advanced breast cancer has now been pulled of the market.
Want to learn more? Come on in. I’m Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice
and personal injury attorney practicing law her in the state of New York. Newsday is reporting
today that Avastin, which was the best selling drug to treat advanced breast cancer, as of
today, Saturday, Nov 19th, 2011 had been pulled off the market. It’s been pulled off the
market because the FDA has come to the conclusion that this drug does more harm than good. Now
why is that significant? It’s significant because these patients who are taking it to
try to treat advanced breast cancer thought this was the miracle cure. The drug manufacturer
believed that this was something that would choke off the blood supply and reduce or limit
the advanced spread of the breast cancer. Well, according to the study they said “Hang
on, this is not good anymore. “ Why? Because the risks and the complications that are developing
from this particular medication are far outweighing the benefits that can occur. Now what does
this mean for you? It means that if you are taking this medication, one of two things
can happen. The doctors who are still prescribing this can prescribe it off label. Meaning that
recognize that the FDA no longer approves it for the use of breast cancer. However,
they still can prescribe it for advanced breast cancer with the provision that you recognize
that there are significant risks. In addition, it also means that your insurance company
probably will not pay for this anymore. Now, the cost to have this for an entire year is
$99,000. That is an incredible amount of money. And despite various grants from the drug manufacturer,
even if they do decide to pay partial amounts that is still a hefty number to pay each year
for this particular drug. Medicare, according to the article, says that they will to continue
to pay for it for the time being. So why is that significant to you? Well, it's significant
in two respects the article says that they will be able to use Avastin not only to treat
your breast cancer but for other cancers as well which is what is designed for. But more
importantly, the reason you are watching this is because you have questions about Avastin
and you might even have sneaking suspicions in the back of your mind about whether or
not your particular breast cancer was timely diagnosed. And one of the things I do in my
practice is I help people understand whether or not their particular matter was timely
diagnosed and correctly treated. So the only way you can know for sure, whether or not
your particular matter was timely diagnosed, is to pick up the phone and call me. This
is what I do every single day I answer questions just like those. So you can reach me at 516-487-8207
or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com. And if you found this information helpful, what I
want you to do is press that button below that says “Like”, if you are watching
this on Facebook and YouTube. This way all your friends can get the benefit of the same
exact information that you just got. I’m Gerry Oginski, here in New York. Thanks for
watching.