Cancer patients prefer risky treatments with larger rewards to 'safe bets'

A new analysis provides a closer look at how much cancer patients value hope - with important implications for how insurers value treatment, particularly in end-of-life care.

The analysis led by Darius Lakdawalla, director of research at the Schaeffer Center at USC and associate professor in the USC Price School of Public Policy, surveyed 150 cancer patients currently undergoing treatment, and is part of a special issue on cancer spending from the journal Health Affairs.

Lakdawalla and his co-authors found the overwhelming majority of cancer patients prefer riskier treatments that offer the possibility of longer survival over safer treatments: 77 percent of cancer patients said they would rather take a "hopeful gamble" - treatments that offer a 50/50 chance of either adding three years or no additional survival - to "safe bet" treatments that would keep them alive for 18 months, but no longer.

"Consumers tend to dislike risk, and researchers and policy makers have generally assumed that patients care about the average gain in survival," Lakdawalla said. "But patients facing a fatal disease with relatively short remaining life expectancy may have less to lose and be more willing to swing for the fences. This analysis points to the larger ideal - that value should be defined from the viewpoint of the patient."

John A. Romley, an economist with the Schaeffer Center at USC; Yuri Sanchez of health care consulting firm Precision Health Economics; Ross MacLean and John Penrod of Bristol-Myers Squibb; and Tomas Philipson of the University of Chicago and Senior Fellow at the Schaeffer Center at USC, were co-authors on the study.

The study is one of several in the special issue of the journal Health Affairs, sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Schaeffer Center at USC, that look at cancer spending and assess the value of treatments which can cost thousands of dollars yet might offer patients with a terminal illness the hope of staying alive longer. Taken together, the articles provide additional considerations for policymakers, patients, providers and others as to when a high-cost treatment is 'worth' the price.

Can Cancer Be Cured?

A key part of the great deception is that Big Pharma and its puppets want to convince the general public that there will never be a cure for cancer!! One tactic Big Pharma and its puppets use is to convince the general public that cancer is caused by DNA damage and that a cure for cancer is 50 years away!! A cure for cancer will always be 50 years away!!

Here are three of the flaws with their DNA claim:

First, if you can safely target and kill cancer cells (as Dr. Kelley did by letting the immune system kill the cancer cells), what difference does it make that the cancer cells have DNA damage? The cancer cells are dead!!

As another example, a natural molecule called laetrile (a molecule found in apple seeds, apricot seeds, etc.) can target and kill cancer cells. Dr. Philip Binzel, M.D., and Dr. John Richardson, M.D. both used liquid laetrile to cure cancer.