It appears that NICE have rejected the use of Nexavar, on cost grounds, for patients suffering from liver cancer. It’s already been rejected by Scotland (NICE only covers England and Wales). This type of problem is inevitable and likely to get worse because there is no unlimited supply of money. Nexavar does not cure liver cancer but may extend a patients life by up to 6 months.

However, if you have the choice, given limited funding, what would you prefer to do? You could extend someone’s life for 6 months or cure someone and extend their life by 10 years. It’s a terrible choice to have to make but as people live longer it’s one we will have to address more and more.

Of course, if we had unlimited funds the issue would not arise. Sadly, we don’t. Money truly is at the root of this problem. We could suggest that too few people have accumulated too much wealth. In fact, around 2% of the population own 50% of the wealth or, put another way 98% of the population have low wages. But, it’s been said that if you distributed all the wealth evenly today it would take very little time to end up back in the hands of the wealthy. That’s what they are good at after all, getting wealthy.

No, the distribution of wealth is not the problem, it’s the fact that we still need money at all. Think about it, if money was not an issue thousands of problems would disappear overnight. No drugs would be too expensive; there would be no fat cats and no banker’s bonuses. Poverty and starvation would disappear and all could contribute to a Utopian future.

Sounds great? Problem is it’s greed that motivates many people and with no money to lust after there would be no reason to work. Society would no doubt break down and we would return to the Stone Age from which we would eventually emerge and simply make the same mistakes over again!

I don’t have an answer for this but until society figures out how to get on without money, be self-motivated without being ‘coin-operated’ and work towards common, global goals we will never move forward.