Strict interpretation of EU decree threatens to end virus treatment for cancer
Half of patients receiving treatment have been helped
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About 40 Finns with advanced cancer have been involved in an experimental treatment programme in which viruses are administered to attack malignant tumours. About half of the patients have benefited from the treatment, says research professor Akseli Hemminki.
Professor Hemminki is studying virus treatment for the Finnish Cancer Institute, and has received considerable grants for his study.
The future of the programme is overshadowed by proposed changes in legislation on medicines, in which a European Union decree is applied to Finland. A strict interpretation of the decree would mean an end to treatments at the private Docrates cancer clinic in Helsinki.
If this happens, it could deprive many patients of their last hope.
Also worried is Terhi Nurminen of Ranua, whose six-yaer-old son Aleksi is in the treatment programme. “I do not even want to think of what it would mean”, she writes in an appeal.
Nurminen has launched an online petition against the proposed legislation put forward by the National Agency for Medicines. The appeal is getting hundreds of signatures a day.
The bill involves the application of an EU decree in Finland. The viruses used in the virus treatment are currently produced at the University of Helsinki, which applies an older production standard. The National Agency for medicines wants to implement the same norms that exist in other areas of pharmaceutical production.
“The purpose is not to prevent essential treatment, but to create secure conditions for for the manufacture of medicines.”
The legislative changes are under preparation at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. It is to be brought before Parliament in the autumn.
“When the EU decree came, there was discussion in a working group of the Council of Ministers that there must be no dual standards”, says ministry official Pekka Järvinen, who says that in spite of the wording, the final interpretation of the law would be made by the official in charge of monitoring the activity - in this case, the National Agency for Medicines.
Production that meets the new standards is possible in Finland, but Hemminki says that the price of a single treatment would rise to EUR 170,000, which would be beyond the means of patients, most of whom pay for the costs of the treatment themselves. Only a few have been given treatment vouchers by their municipalities.
In late May, Hemminki sent a letter to the patients at the clinic, warning that virus treatment could come to an end if a very strict interpretation were placed on the law.
It would also lead to an ethical conflict. The Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association states that a doctor has the right and the obligation to offer experimental treatments, if evidence-.based treatments are not available. “It would be strange if the law were to state otherwise”, Hemminki says.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 12.6.2008 - TODAY |
 Strict interpretation of EU decree threatens to end virus treatment for cancer |
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