Are New Wonder Drugs Only for the Select Few?

These days you cannot pick up a newspaper without reading of some new wonder drug that has been discovered. Scientists have made great leaps in their knowledge and understanding of the body's DNA and the results are outstanding.

A few decades ago certain cancers were almost considered to be a death sentence but now they are curable, or at the very least controllable. And as a result we can now expect to live not only a longer life, but also a better life too.

Obviously this has to be seen as a good thing for all of us. Or, does it actually present more problems than we realise?

The cost of these new drugs seems to be getting higher and higher all the time. Although, to be honest, it is not surprising when you consider what it takes to get any new drug onto the market.

The big drug companies have to invest colossal amounts of money into research and development. They spend years testing new drugs to make sure they comply with all the various regulations and discover what, if any, the side effects are.

So by the time a new drug reaches the market an enormous amount of money has been invested on it. And obviously this money has to be recouped - plus enough profit to pay the shareholders and fund any new research. And this money is be paid by us, the patients, either directly over the pharmacy counter or through any social security or health insurance payments we make.

And this is really where the problems begin.

Not that many years ago once a patient was diagnosed with cancer it would not be too long before they, unfortunately passed away. That was because there was no means of detecting a lot of cancers until it was almost too late.

But now with early detection of cancers we have a much better chance of survival. So, unlike our parents generation, if we are diagnosed with cancer we stand a very good chance of carrying on living well into our old age.

But this comes at a cost - and the cost is that we live for many years consuming large quantities of very expensive drugs.

When my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer his consultant informed him he needed to go on a particular course of tablets, and gave him a note to pass onto his doctor. Once his doctor saw what the tablets were his eyes widened and he turned to my father and said, "Do you know how much these tablets are going to cost me?"

But, as we all live that much longer the cost of keeping us alive has risen alarmingly. In the UK the job of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) seems to be to look into the cost effectiveness of new drugs and deciding whether or not they can he used in the National Health Service. There have been a number of drugs they have classified as being far to costly, one in particular was for Alzheimer disease much to the annoyance of those patients and their families.

So is this the way modern medicine is heading? Will there be drugs and treatment for those who can afford it, and no drugs - and perhaps not even any treatment - for those who cant? This really does conjure up an image of a two-tier health system - one for the rich and one for the poor.

So what is the point in all these new wonder drugs if the majority of people they were designed to help cannot afford to benefit from them?

Perhaps now is the time to look at more natural ways to keep ourselves healthy and try to prevent many of the more serious illnesses taking hold of us in the first place.

Unless of course you happen to be extremely rich that is!