Parliament slams PBS policy
June 17, 2011
THE pharmaceutical industry’s
push to reverse the Labor
government’s cabinet approval
policy for new drugs received a
boost yesterday with the passing of
a motion against the move by
Federal Parliament.
The motion said that the listing of
new medicines on the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
should not be “subject to
capricious political interference”,
and sends a strong signal to the
government that voters want to
return to a non-political process for
new PBS listings, according to
Medicines Australia.
The motion “deplores the
Government’s new policy that
despite positive recommendations
by the PBAC, all applications for
listing will be further scrutinised by
Cabinet” and that “listing of
medicies can be deferred
indefinitely”.
Welcoming the stance, Medicines
Australia acting chief executive
Andrew Bruce said “The Cabinet’s
decision to block new listings on
the PBS has caused a lot of angst
among patients, doctors and the
Australian medicines industry.
“The Government is bringing
politics into clinical decisions where
people’s health, and indeed their
lives, are at stake.
“They are pursuing the political
imperative of a Budget surplus and
they’re using patients’ medicines to
do it,” he added.
The new system puts medicines
out of the reach of many
Australians, leading to a two-tiered
system where only the rich have
access to the newest drugs,
according to Bruce.
“Australia shouldn’t be a country
where we can’t afford to provide
medicines for sick people,” he said,
adding that it was time Australia
reverted to the old system “that
has served patients well.
“These are medicines that the
expert Pharmaceutical Benefits
Advisory Committee has found to
be cost-effective and therefore a
sound economic investment.
“Few, if any, other areas of
government expenditure are
subject to the same rigorous
economic evaluation,” he added.
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