who wants to live forever?

as dear old dead freddie mercury once sang.

sobriety justdoesnot agree with my misanthropic side.  so here i am sucking on a carton of french rabbit chardonnay like it’s my mothers teat with some czech lager chilling nicely in the freezer and getting annoyed at the goddamn news with wolf eyes dicking my earholes.  once more. 

i missed me.

here goes…

a cancer patient is threatening to sue the nhs over a potentially life-extending drug.  debbie hirst wants to pay privately for the breast cancer drug avastin but has been told if she does, her free treatment on the nhs will end.

to quote the department of health: “it is a fundamental principle of the nhs, supported by all the main political parties, that treatment should be free at the point of need. co-payments would undermine this.”

a lawyer (colour me surprised) has offered to help mrs hirst, mother-of-two (does this matter?) to take a civil action against the nhs saying that her human rights are being ignored.

to quote mrs hirst: “it is my human right to a life.  this drug could extend my life and if i have to go down this route i am prepared to do it.  i have nothing to lose.”

see also colette mills being treated with taxol for breast cancer.  she believes her chances would be improved with avastin, which is not available on the nhs.

to quote colette mills: “it’s immoral that the drugs are out there and freely available to certain people, yet they say i cannot have it.”

let’s have a wee look at this. i have every sympathy for peoples suffering but lets put aside the usual emotive language, the ‘problem’ of big pharma (not a huge problem really) and the issue of how shitty the nhs is (it fucking isn’t).  no-one is being denied their right to life – the belief that a human being has a right to live basically without being killed by another human being.  a concept which has more to do with war or euthanasia or murder and very little to do with medical treatment.

to quote the un’s international covenant on civil and political rights: “every human being has the inherent right to life.  this right shall be protected by law.  no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

note the word arbitrarily.  so you have the right to live, essentially, without anyone else infringing upon this.  and no more.

what mrs hirst is being denied is the possibility of receiving an expensive drug that may or may not prolong her life.  medical treatment is in itself a luxury, a privilege of living in a well-off country.  even better it’s (relatively) free here.  the truth, ugly or not, is that it is not a basic or fundamental right.  there is no universal entitlement to immortality.  what we have with the nhs is, all political posturing and personal griping aside, a pretty good health care provider.  the choice is there (as it should be) for people to pay for private treatment.  but never the twain shall meet.  preferably.

the cold hard facts to be faced in many of these situations is that what pays for someone terminally ill to stay alive for a few extra weeks is money taken away from something else.

while awkwardly admirable, the view that i must keep on living at any costs and expense is an odd one to me and asks some questions i don’t have answers to.  curing/preventing illness and pain seems pretty acceptable to most.  curing ageing, extending life indefinitely, i’m not sure is entirely welcomed.  no?  for all the bullshit utopian dreams advanced by science (and religion…hmmm…coincidence?) i’m not even sure immortality is wanted.  do we want to, no matter have a right to?  i know and accept the fact that if i get sick those nice doctors and nurses (harold shipman excluded) will do their best to make me better.  but there are limits.  i accept this, hopefully.  if i wake up tomorrow with a fuckload of tumours, sicker than an unauthorised tom cruise biography, we’ll see if i do walk the motherloving walk.

nor is it a moral issue.  it is certainly an emotional one, particularly when it involves someone with a terminal illness.  like i said the truth, ugly or otherwise, is a harsh economic one.  is there any such thing as a moral right?  all getting a bit philosophical.  all getting a bit utilitarian.  is one individuals well being greater than the marginal/lesser benefit to a large number of individuals?  the greater good.  the end justifies the means. or some such shit.  call me a skeptic, a moral relativist.  whatever.

at the end of the day (as thick footballers like to say) we live in the real world not some absolutist world.  medicine thrives and ultimately advances through brutal economics not conscience.  this constant battle between government and business keeps both in check.  good.  herceptin is cost effective.  tarceva isn’t.  somebody lives long enough to see their grandsons first birthday.  someone else doesn’t.  is it fair?  fuck no.  but whoever said life had to be fair?

should people spend the last few months of their life begging for nhs funding to add two months to their lives?  should people spend their last few weeks accepting their mortality, saying goodbye to their loved ones, doing something they always wanted to do?  the average time from diagnosis to death for lung cancer patients is six months.  tarceva (among others) will not cure you.  it may give you some extra time on this planet. no more.  all i knows is i’m strapping a fuckload of dynamite to me, walking out into the middle of some beautifully bleak desert and pressing that goddamn button.  hopefully somebody i know and love will film it, put it on youtube and make their fame and fortune.  

as sure as paedophiles stalk on facebook, as sure as a saline drip in my groin will swell the old chap to the size of a beercan, we are all going to die.  like it or lump it as my old granny used to say.

the bbc story