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Your Letter
showing support for
Patients Against Lymphomas'
Letter to CMS of 9/11/2007
RE: CMS-1392-FC, Reimbursement for Radioimmunotherpies (Bexxar and Zevalin) ...
Supporting Patients Against Lymphomas' Letter to CMS
Dear Honorable Members of Congress and Senate:
I am writing to show my support for the letter* by Patients Against Lymphoma to CMS and Senators on the Finance Committee, regarding the ruling by CMS that will deny or limit access to radioimmunotherapies (RIT), invaluable1 therapies for lymphomas.
Letter to CMS, dated 9/11/2007: http://lymphomation.org/CMS-RIT.pdf
What's at stake: 1 Dr. Richard Wahl, Professor of Radiology and Oncology and Director of Nuclear Medicine and PET, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and many other experts agree.
In a letter to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, Dr. Wahl states,
“Response rates of up to 95% have been reported and exciting new data are emerging from large trials again showing these drugs to be the most active single agents in lymphoma, working even when chemotherapy does not.
… Patients may actually be cured with these agents.
… Bexxar and Zevalin were developed in part with NIH / NCI support. It is very hard to decipher the logic by which the true fruits of the NIH, science translated to practice, are not made available to the public by its sibling in the HHS family, CMS. This suggests a dysfunctional HHS family, which I am sure is neither a desired perception nor result.”.
ACTION NEEDED: Please amend the CMS ruling to restore reimbursement rates for Bexxar and Zevalin to 2007 rates during 2008. This will allow CMS the time it needs to collect the necessary data to base reimbursement rates for 2009 on accurate data and appropriate classifications. We and the patients who need these drugs, now and in the future, urge you to act swiftly, before the ruling takes effect on January 1, 2008.
Time is running short, and so we beg you to act swiftly to save these life-saving treatments.
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