BATTLER Janine McDonald yesterday delivered almost 5,000 letters from Sun readers demanding the Government urgently make a life-saving breast cancer drug available on the NHS.
She was helped with her mission to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt’s department by our Deputy Health Editor Jane Symons.
Ms Hewitt last night vowed to fast-track testing of the drug Herceptin — described as a “magic bullet” as it targets a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.
Janine, 36, from South London, is among the women denied Herceptin.
Those with terminal disease can get it on the NHS, but it has been shown to HALVE the chance of secondary cancers when given early on. Janine has been forced to use the inheritance left by her mum — who died of breast cancer — to pay for part of a £40,000 course of Herceptin herself.
Twenty women a week die because they are not prescribed the drug.
The Sun campaign, which calls for an end to the red tape, was boosted on Monday when Somerset nurse Barbara Clark, 49, won her battle to get Herceptin on the NHS.
Leading cancer experts have also been spelling out why they think this drug is so important.
Breakthrough Breast Cancer’s Professor Alan Ashworth said: “We should be banging on the table demanding it is made available as soon as possible.”
And Professor Charles Coombes, of Cancer Research UK, said: “If the Government is serious about getting rapid treatment out country-wide, this is the one.”
The World Health Organisation’s ex-cancer expert Prof Karol Sikora said: “We can’t allow this iniquity where some people can pay for treatment and others die.”
Dr Paul Ellis of London’s St Thomas’s Hospital said: “The Government has to think outside the box. It’s a travesty for this not to be available to those who need it now.”
Ms Hewitt said: “I want to ensure any woman with early-stage breast cancer can get this treatment after chemotherapy, if it is judged she will benefit from it.”
