Help Preserve Quality Cancer Care In The Elderly!!!!

My father is a veteran of three wars, WWII, Korean, and Vietnam twice, and now at the age of almost eighty-six, he has stage 3 lung cancer. When my father or any other geriatric person has chemotherapy and becomes anemic, I would hope they get erythroporiesis stimulating agents (ESAs) such as Procrit and Aranesp. These medications are considered the standard of care and are very important to the quality of life and safety of many elderly cancer patients. The FDA tells doctors how ESAs should be used. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the American Society of Hematology, (ASH), and the American Society of Clinical Onocologists , (ASCO), have published guidelines based on clinical trials as evidence and are accepted as the standard of care in ESA use in cancer patients. Even though clinical trials, FDA instructions, expert opinion panels and a fifteen years of evidence based use, Medicare is restriciting the ability to treat anemic cancer patients. As a result of these new restrictive policies the effectiveness of ESAs will be greatly limited in the treatment of anemia due to chemotherapy. These restrictions will increase blood transfusion requirements making it more difficult for the elderly people to get the necessary care. Local personnel overseeing the blood supply are concerned about the Medicare rules involving the availability of needed blood. These established national guidelines  should be left to the expert clinical judgement of experienced oncologists and their patients.  The bureaucrats in Washington who are not involved in the treatment of cancer patients should step down and let the oncologists feel free to follow the expert guidelines in the treatment of their patients without subjecting Medicare patients to substandard medical care. Please be an advocate for your healthcare rights and  contact your members of Congress as well as Medicare.  Here are some contact numbers:

Medicare/Health & Human Services

Secretary Mike Leavitt                                877-696-6775
Deputy Secretary Kerry Weems                  202-690-6726
Deputy Administrator Herb Kuhn                410-786-4164


Or contact : http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt  to find your local representative immediately to let them know we want treatment guidelines based on FDA labeling and established national treatment guidelines and Medicare shouldn't change the rules to require doctors to treat cancer patients with sub-standard care. Please voice your opposition to these new policies that will eliminate the essential benefits for the elderly cancer patient.
 
Sincerely a cancer  patient advocate,

Margaret Chandler,R.N.