"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Apologies: Sorry blogging's been light. Parenting and professional duties are getting in the way. One of those duties last night involved writing a letter of necessity for Synagis®, a vaccine to combat a respiratory virus in premature babies. My patient meets the criteria, yet, as I wrote the letter I couldn't help wondering if the vaccine was really worth the cost. It's given once a month at the hefty sum of $1100 a dose. It does reduce hospitalizations due to the virus it targets, but only from 12.8% to 7.9% in babies like my patient. And last year I had two patients (twins) who were hospitalized for the virus despite getting the immunization. But, I suppose the insurance companies must feel they'll save more in prevented hospitalizations than they'll pay for vaccine, otherwise they wouldn't cover it. posted by Sydney on
1/07/2004 08:23:00 AM
0 comments
