I think the point was made that up until very recently, as I said, we were doing very well. It's really just in the last couple of years...and the first really significant drug would be Avastin, which came along and prolonged life in colon cancer. It came at a big price tag, and that was the first decision that surprised us all a bit, that these weren't going to be covered. Four years ago we were doing just fine, relatively speaking, but in the last few years we've really been sliding off the curve.
I made this impassioned plea for kidney cancer basically because not only are these very good drugs, but they're the first. They're not “me too” drugs. They're not just adding a little something to what we already have for kidney cancer. We're going from nothing to these ones. I think we were all caught a little off guard that this was not found to be adequately cost-effective.
I know we're talking about a big picture here in terms of trying to find a way to sort out how we can afford these things and move forward as a first world country, but I think we also have to go back and fix these two recent problems. I would really hope that something could be done to get the provinces to fund those right now.
Sorry, I'm not answering your question, but yes, we are starting to be at real risk of not maintaining a first world standard of care in oncology--we really are.