UK Government Response to the 13,000 Signature LDN Now NHS Low Dose Naltrexone Trial Petition to Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister.

Link - http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21825

Text -

All drugs need to be thoroughly tested to make sure they are safe enough to be made available to patients. Most research of this kind is done by the pharmaceutical industry. The Government is aware that occasionally there will be few or no commercial incentives for companies to fund clinical trials.

The Department of Health’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) supports the research most likely to bring benefits to patients and to the NHS. High quality proposals for support into any aspect of human health are always welcome. The NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme in particular is keen to receive suggestions for research topics in areas of market failure. These can be sent through the open access form at: www.hta.ac.uk/suggest/index.shtml.

To date, no application has been received regarding low dose naltrexone. Any application would be considered on its merits.

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Author's Note - There is reason to suspect the sbove is not factually correct and that one application has been made. More news to follow later.

Audit Scotland Warns of Pressures on the NHS Scotland Budget - Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) Savings Cannot Be Ignored


And so it goes on, yet another reason why the 4000%+ higher price of currently used auto-immune and cancer treatments vs Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) cannot be ignored any longer. The potential billions of pounds in savings here make the millions required for LDN clinical trials a sound investment for the NHS in Scotland and the UK as a whole.

http://bit.ly/SPLDNcost

UK Telegraph - NICE Propose to Restrict Key IBD Treatments to One Year on Grounds of Cost


Yet more justification, if any were needed that the UK NHS needs to seriously look into widespread use of Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) as a low cost treatment for Crohn's Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and the any other conditions it has been used successfully to reat including other auto-immune disease, cancers, autism and HIV/AIDs.

At £12,500 per patient per year for Infliximab versus £300 per year for Low Dose Naltrexone, it is the proverbial 'no-brainer' for the NHS to do whatever it takes to convince consultants and GPs that LDN is a suitable drug choice for IBD.

The government and public bodies need to cease dithering on this and take action now so that IBD sufferers need not suffer unnecessarily.

http://bit.ly/NICEIBD

Round-Up of LDN Now Low Dose Naltrexone Campaign at The Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee


Original video of the meeting here (Click link 01/12/2009 and fast forward 39 minutes to LDN Now meeting) -

http://bit.ly/SPLDNvid1

youtube version -

http://bit.ly/SPLDNvid

Interview segment from Holyrood TV Highlights programme (Click link 03/12/2009 and fast forward to 16:00 minutes) -

http://bit.ly/SPLDNint

Full transcript of the meeting -

http://bit.ly/SPLDNmin

LDN Now Group Petitions and Meets with The Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Commitee on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) Availability on the NHS in Scotland

The meeting is available on vide here (Window Media file) -

http://bit.ly/SPLDNvid1

(Click the 01/12/2009 link and forward to 39 minutes in)
This video extract will be available on youtube.com shortly.

The first minute of the meeting is available here - http://bit.ly/SPLDNmin1

Some key quotes (Paraphrased)

Robin Harper, (Scottish Green Party) - Basis for clinical trial exists with current LDN evidence. Suggest GPs gather clinical data on LDN use.

Anne McLaughlin (SNP) - Committee needs to write to charities to ask if they will help fund trials.

Nigel Don (SNP) - LDN is a drug that treats the immune system drug and clinical trials are required for all conditions it can be shown to treat.

John Wilson (SNP) - Health charities should be encouraged to ensure they are spending money on researching all options for their patients, including LDN.

Frank McAveety (Labour) - The issue that the private sector will not fund trials due to no profit motive is clear and is noted.

A full transcript will be available on 8th December,

The Beginnings of Hope for the US Healthcare System?

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/house-democrats-unveil-plan-for-health-care-overhaul/?hp

This story documents what I believe is the start of a long, long journey for the US towards the sort of Universal Health Care Coverage that its citizens need and deserve.

I would never say that the UK NHS and welfare system is perfect but the stories I read on here, and see on US TV programmes like Extreme Makeover Home Edition make it patently obvious to the outsider that the US system lets huge numbers of people get into dire straits very easily, usually through no fault of their own.

So I hope after all the in-fighting, dis-information battles, horse-trading, fear-mongering about the evils of 'Socialiased' medicine (Shock horror - get over yourself America, Socialism is not a dirty word, just an ideology that large parts of the world seem to manage to make work just fine thanks), that this process will allow the US to move beyond this system that only serves to line the pockets of the healthcare industry rather than serve its patients.

David Cameron's 'Revolution' and What the People Need to See

As the BBC story puts it, how revolutionary are Cameron's proposals?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8068735.stm

And what would a 'sensible party' propose as reform for the UK Parliamentary system?

Never mind TXT alerts, publish and subscribe a la twitter for your MP/MEP/devolved MP should be the order of the day. The progress of bills is focussing on the wrong thing, what we need to see now is just what our elected representative is up to - if they are attending parliamentary sittings, are they voting and how did they vote, are they proposing motions and bills? 

If, as expected, the tightening of the expenses system results in higher pay for representatives, they'll be needing to justify that they are earning their keep in short order, lest the faith of the voting public be further eroded.

The 'Walmart Doctrine' Has Landed (In the UK)

Supermarkets in the UK deign not to show Manic Street Preacher's new CD cover.

As the band say, it's OK to show plenty of flesh on the front cover of a magazine but not a slightly abstract, painted depiction of a bloody face.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8050110.stm

[US] Medicare's in critical condition, cries report.

'The GOP used the dire news to pounce on President Obama for his "reckless borrowing and spending spree" that the White House hopes will bring the country out of recession.

"His policies are putting our kids and grandkids deeper" in the hole, said House minority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).'

So a pointless war with contracts handed out left, right and centre to cronies was not a 'reckless' 'spending spree' then? As they say in the US, 'yeah, right'.

New York Daily News Story -
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/05/13/2009-05-13_medicares_in_critical_condition_cries_report.html

google and The Wire's David Simon on the Newspaper Industry in the Web Age.

'Simon also lambasted the newspaper industry's cry of "it's not our fault". Newspapers had gone from privately-owned family firms to publically-traded stocks, he said, and many of the cuts in the 1990s were against the background of bumper (35 per cent) profits. Families were content with 10 to 15 per cent annual profit.'

Sounds like a case you could make for the wanton pillaging of many companies in many industries since the 80s. The one case where this left-winger will say, public = bad, private = good.

Gender Pay Gap Bill, Surprise More Whining from Businesses

BBC News

More nonsense from businesses.

So, it is going to cost them money to report on gender pay differences.

Well, did they not make more money by withholding this pay?

What's the problem then?

Nothing more pointlessly tedious than companies complaining about regulation that is aimed at making them play fair. Put up and shut up and be glad you're not being prosecuted for it.

EU Working Time Directive Opt Out = Cop Out

BBC News

Let's examine the logic - It is a bad idea to restrict the hours people work as it does not allow 'flexible working'.

Is there anybody who reads a job ad who doesn't read 'flexlible working' and read 'sell your soul to our company, give up your free time on demand and work whenever it suits us'?

Also, surely allowing someone to work, say 50 hours a week on a regular basis, means preventing the creation of another part-time job of 12.5 hours a week which would ultimately cost the same?

Well, I say cost the same, it would if people got paid for these additional hours but how many do?

Another new blog on Low-dose Naltrexone (LDN), focussing on LDN for Crohn's

http://ldnforcrohns.blogspot.com

New Blog on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) in the NHS in the UK

http://ldnonthenhs.blogspot.com

Low Dose Naltreone (LDN) - The (Sadly) Neglected Drug

There is a little known scandal in the National Health Service in the UK (And in the US).

There have been many incidents where the NHS have been accused of with-holding treatments from patients which are known to be effective purely on grounds of cost. However, in this case, there is a treatment which has a growing body of evidence to it's efficacy which is being largely ignored by the NHS and which has the potential to save money rather than cost money.

This treatment is called Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

There a number of web sites on the internet about this drug but in summary :

LDN is small amount of Naltrexone, a drug which is commonly used to assist detoxification in drug and alcohol addicts.

The difference being that LDN is generally prescribed as 1/50th of the dose of Naltrexone.

The mechanism of LDN's working is not well understood but it is thought to assist in regulating the immune system.

LDN has been successfully used in the treatment of a huge range of conditions from Crohn's disease, to Multiple Sclerosis (MS), from fertility to Cancer.

Partly because of this, many people assume LDN is some kind of 'magic bullet' 'wonder drug' that is too good to be true (However, for example, note that steroids can be used to treat a huge number of conditions also, so this is not a valid refutation).

Naltrexone is not licensed to be used as LDN in the US or UK. This is partly because there have not been many studies or clinical trials done on it.

Why? It is hard not to come to the conclusion that the reason, or at least a large part of the reason, is that there is not a lot of money to be made by pharmaceutical companies from LDN. Naltrexone is already out of patent and, at present it is not possible to re-patent a drug for a different use.

In the current economic climate this is an even more pressing issue than ever before. How can we afford to ignore a treatment, with no known side-effects, which costs around 20 USD or 25 GBP per month per patient in favour of long-term use of powerful steroids and immuno-suppresant drugs with many side effects which can cost thousands of pounds per year per patient?

At the very least we need large scale clinical trials of this drug right now.

There is a petition at the Number 10 web site to push for this to happen in the UK, you can find it - here.

A list of other web sites on this drug and issues surrounding it follows.

Please take some time to read up on this and pass it on to anybody you know, especially those who suffer from auto-immune dieases like IBD (Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's), Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Cronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)/ Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), Parkinson's Disease, Fibromyalgia, etc.

http://lowdosenaltrexone.org

http://lowdosenaltrexone.org

http://ldnnow.co.uk (Promoting the use of LDN in the UK)

http://googleldn.com (Joseph Wouk's book on his beating progressive MS with LDN)

http://glasgowldn2009.com (European LDN Conference 2009, just passed).

http://essentialhealthclinic.com (Private Glasgow clinic which prescribes LDN)