Oh, the tragic irony: These "life-saving" cancer drugs could eat up your entire life savings in under a year

Tuesday, December 01, 2015 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: cancer treatments, pharmaceutical drug costs, price gouging

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(NaturalNews) The pharmaceutical industry is generally known to be a greed-driven, profiteering racket. However, the real danger for average Americans isn't just getting ripped off while suffering horrific side effects as a result of taking drugs — it's the threat of going bankrupt simply due to having a chronic illness for which the medical-industrial complex now prescribes "cures" that cost upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to manage.

Cancer is arguably the biggest profiteering disease of all. It's the one condition that will never have a cure — at least, that you'll hear about in the mainstream media — and will perpetually be assigned "experimental" treatments that would drain your entire bank account in a year or less. Here's an overview of some of these so-called experimental drugs and the costs associated with each:

1. Portrazza (necitumumab) by Eli Lilly & Co.
This experimental lung cancer drug doesn't cure lung cancer, of course, but its manufacturer claims that when combined with chemotherapy, it might help extend a patient's lifespan by a mere month and a half. The cost? As much as $1,309 per three-week cycle, according to The Washington Post. This translates to a cost of more than $22,500 annually.

The average working American earns about $46,500 annually in taxable wages, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA). This is just slightly more than double the cost of getting treated with necitumumab for a year, assuming a person making this amount of money actually saved $22,500 of his earnings for such treatment.

However, the reality is that the average American household — not individual, since the the amount for an individual is probably a lot lower than this — saves about $4,900 of its annual earnings in the bank for a rainy day. At $1,309 per three-week cycle, treatment with necitumumab would drain a family's yearly savings in less than three months.

2. Provenge (sipuleucel-T) by Dendreon
The sad truth is that necitumumab is actually on the lower end of the cancer drug-pricing spectrum. Cancer drugs like Provenge (sipuleucel-T), which is used to treat prostate cancer, cost far more. This FDA-approved cancer drug reportedly costs about $93,000 per year, and only increases one's lifespan by about four months, on average.

Just like Portrazza, Provenge isn't a cure for prostate cancer. It should have never even received approval from the Food and Drug Administration in the first place because it hasn't actually been proven effective. And yet, it's now being widely used in the treatment of a disease that could easily be avoided if only men consumed more selenium, zinc and other prostate-protecting nutrients.

Only about one in five American families earns more than $90,000 annually, which means virtually nobody can actually afford Provenge. Those who've been assigned this quackery treatment are having their drugs covered by insurance, which is entirely unsustainable because somebody has to pay this enormous bill. Even if 100% of a family's earnings were to go to the cost of paying for a yearly regimen of Provenge (which is impossible anyway), there would be nothing left for food, fuel or basic shelter.

3. Adcetris (brentuximab) by Seattle Genetics
Adcetris, a drug used to treat Hodgkin's lymphoma, costs about $16,000 a shot! Honestly, who can actually afford this? While some have reported positive results thanks to Adcetris, the cost of a single shot alone is worth more than what an average American family earns in a month. Sure, you'd see some improvements — but how will you and your family survive with all the debt piling up?

The aforementioned drugs are just some of the most common cancer treatments we have on the market today. While these drugs already cost an arm and a leg to purchase, there are several others like these that cost even more. These drugs would literally bankrupt you and your family in an instant, should you or a loved one develop cancer and for whatever reason decide to go the conventional route. That's why we suggest that our readers and anyone else with an open mind opt for prevention, rather than reactionary treatment.

Take note: Doing the right thing early on might just save you and your family from financial ruin.

Sources used:

WashingtonPost.com

SSA.gov

Fool.com

Phys.org

News.com.au

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com