Saul Anuzis’ op-ed (“Congress has surrendered America’s war on cancer,” Jan. 23), is offensive to me as a cancer patient. His claims that drug pricing reforms in the Build Back Better Act would gut important cancer research are dangerous fear-mongering and are just not true.
As a cancer patient, President Biden’s promise to cure cancer is incredibly important to me. I was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, and also live with lupus, an autoimmune disease that makes managing my cancer very difficult.
I also know firsthand the impact of very high drug prices. Each round of chemo costs $10,000, a chemo shot called Neulasta is priced at $24,000 every two months, and Lupron — a hormone therapy I took until last year — costs $1,500 a month. These high prices make it extremely difficult to pay my mortgage and even buy food.
But Mr. Anuzis is setting up a false choice. As patients, we don’t have to choose between innovation and lower drug prices.
That is why I support the drug pricing reforms in the Build Back Better Act. These reforms both deliver relief to patients like me and reward innovation by allowing drug companies to set launch prices and then giving them up to 13 years before prices are eligible for Medicare negotiation. Plus, the plan assesses drugs’ clinical efficacy when determining negotiated prices so the government can reward truly innovative medications.
It’s time for Congress to pass these badly needed drug pricing reforms to deliver the innovation we need at prices we can afford.
Christina Raymond, Limestone
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