HUNTINGTON, NY -- A woman suffering from wet macular degeneration must go blind before she can receive treatment to save her sight. Britain's National Health Service is denying Joan Armstrong a prescription for the macular degeneration drug Lucentis unless she is blind in one eye.
Wet age-related macular degeneration is caused by bleeding and leakage from abnormal blood vessel growth. There is no cure for wet AMD, but treatment can delay the disease's onset. Wet AMD is the most severe form of macular degeneration and progresses much more quickly than other forms of the disease. Macular degeneration causes blurred, distorted vision and can lead to legal blindness. Nearly 10 million Americans and 240,000 individuals in the United Kingdom suffer from AMD.
Managed care organizations like the NHS and American HMOs regularly deny health coverage to ill patients in order to save money, leaving individuals with chronic and deteriorative illnesses with few options beyond paying for treatment out of their own pockets or not receiving treatment at all. The state of California recently launched a probe into illegal health insurance cancellations by California's HMOs.
Clinical trials conducted by the National Institutes for Health have shown that a compound of high-dose vitamins and nutrients can have an impact on the progress of AMD. Vitamins C, E and A, Beta-Carotene, Zinc and Copper, along with other antioxidants, have been shown to decrease the risk of AMD by up to 25%. Vitamin supplements containing these nutrients are available without a prescription.
There is some hope for Joan Armstrong and others being denied treatment. Putney MP Justine Greening, among others, have been campaigning to help Ms. Armstrong receive treatment. "I don't think it's fair," Greening told the Guardian, "that people who have paid into the NHS all their lives are not able to use it."
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