Sicko: Bone marrow transplant for kidney cancer?

In the movie, there is an anecdote where a man was denied this exotic treatment for his kidney cancer.

Arnold Kling writes that Britain, France and Canada would have denied this experimental treatment as well.

Ironically, the US would have been his only shot at receiving this treatment, via a clinical trial.

Comments

Anonymous
while the above statements may certainly be true, Arnold Kling in his post states these as suppositions…not facts.
He evidences no knowledge (personal or otherwise) that any of those countries might or might not cover bone marrow transplant for kidney cancer treatment, or of any ongoing clinical trial in America that would.
Anonymous
anon 1:37 ignorance is bliss right?
The NCCN guidelines make no mention of bone marrow transplant. They do recommend “experimental protocols” at this stage.
A review of pubmed using ” renal cell cancer bone marrow transplant” returns a whopping 16 results. Again, nothing has left the study protocol stage and one review mentions the high number of participants who are excluded due to multiple reasons. One can surmize from the highly limited number of publications that NO COUNTRY completes transplants for this popuLation on a regular (and certainly only experimental) basis.
Lastly Mr King shows what is wrong when a scientifically naive journalist tries to investigate a medical issue (google…good God). In five minutes of research on the computer, I did a better job proving his point than he did.
Anonymous
Anonymous — A simple reading of Kling’s editorial reveals that he is an economist. Mr. Moore, likewise, is not a journalist. To whom are you referring?

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