Not nice enough
Updated on 28 April 2006
Is the medical watchdog is playing it too safe with many new drugs?
The Lancet says Nice is doing its job too cautiously
>>Watch the report
A new drug for brain cancer - rejected today: inhaled insulin for diabetics - ruled out. Alzheimers drugs not recommended.
It is just doing its job but the health watchdog the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has come under fire over a series of decisions, its latest critic - the medical journal the Lancet.
Nice's next big decision will be on the breast cancer drug Herceptin - just given a positive recommendation by European regulators.
John Dowle, 59, took part in a two-year trial for inhaled - rather than injected - insulin for his diabetes - along with lifestyle changes, it improved his blood sugars by up to 25%. But now it appears it will not be available on the NHS.
Nice recommended that it not be used. Inhaled insulin costs £500 more a year than injecting.
But today in an editorial the Lancet critcised this decision saying doctors should be left to decide who to prescribe it to.
Nice has recently faced a barrage of criticism over its failure to recommend certain Alzheimer's drugs.
And now today it has rejected two new breast cancer treatments - docetaxel and paclitaxel.
And a drug - Gliadel - for an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Nice has carried out 100 appraisals over the past seven years. Putting together the recommendations and the savings by refusing a treatment - it has cost the NHS about £1 billion.
