I am beyond angry that women with Stage 4 secondary breast cancer are being left to die before their time in this country, while the rest of the world moves forward with life extending treatments. Women like me are dying because proven cancer drugs are being denied on cost grounds. Friends are gone who should still be here with their families and children. So many of the amazing women featured here, many of them my friends, have now tragically died. Despite a median life expectancy of just 3–5 years, secondary breast cancer was reclassified by @NICEComms from “severe” to “moderate severe”, reducing access to funding for the latest life-extending treatments and diverting it elsewhere. Secondary/metastasic breast cancer is one of the biggest killers of women between 35-64, yet patients are denied drugs that are routinely available in other countries. This is a political choice and women are paying with their lives. #Enhertu is approved in the US, EU, Japan, China, Canada and Israel, and is available in Scotland. Yet women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are deemed “not cost effective”. Why can all these countries provide this treatment while we cannot? Why are women with secondary breast cancer treated as expendable? @Keir_Starmer @wesstreeting @BBCWomansHour @AshleyDalton_MP @UN_Women @UKLabour @NHSuk @METUPUKorg @BreastCancerNow
