Please sign this petition; It May Help to Save CML Patients Lives in the United Kingdom

So they call it the “United Kingdom.” It doesn't seem so united to patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia that are currently living there. It seems as though The National Institute of Clinical Health and Excellence (NICE) is trying to refuse to recommended 2nd line lifesaving therapy for CML patients who are resistant to 1st line therapy. What that basically means is that once a CML patient becomes resistant to Gleevec, or possibly one of the other drugs used to treat CML; they are no longer eligible to receive the second or third drug treatment; Tasigna or Sprycel, because it simply “costs too much.” You have one chance and one chance only, even though there are other options.

Being diagnosed with cancer is a devastating and scary event. When you hear the words, “You have leukemia,” your world turns upside down. When you are told, “There is hope, there is this new medication that will hopefully put your cancer into remission,” you breathe a sigh of relief. You have many questions and fears, but now you also have hope. You currently have several options, because there is not just one of these miracle drugs, but three. Three, just in case one of them stops working, you still have two more options.

Patients in the United Kingdom are threatened with this option being taken away from them. NICE claims that it is just too expensive to offer the second and third drugs to a patient that has become resistant to the first drug. Just imagine for a moment what that must be like. Without the second and third drugs as an option, you will die. You will die knowing that there is hope dangling right in front of you. If you lived somewhere else, this option would be open to you; you could continue to live your life. The people living in the UK are facing just that tragedy.

Please take two minutes out of your life to sign this petition; In hopes of giving my fellow CMLers’ a chance to live! This proposition is preposterous! They only have until Weds. at 5 pm, so please sign now!