ROME - "Against the despicable bargaining on the price of drugs played with the spending review on the skin of people with chronic diseases": with this motivation the national secretary of Aice, the Italian Association against epilepsy, Giovanni Battista Pesce started the strike of the hunger that "will continue until the constitutional right to health is restored". At the heart of the matter is "the infamy that immediately manifested itself in the world of epilepsy on the drugs Keppra-Levetiracetam and Topamax-Topiramate, imposing on people treated with these irreplaceable drugs, the cost of purchasing around 50 and 100 euros to box. An unconstitutional health guaranteed only to the rich". Pesce considers it "an unacceptable violence against science itself, beyond the possible irreparable damage to impose, by supposed and unproven equivalence, to change the drug, whether generic or branded, if this determines the control of epileptic seizures". For those who have achieved crisis control or the best possible balance, says Pesce, "changing the drug, whether branded or generic, is unjustified violence, an absurd attack on health and a commodification of health".
As AICE reports in a note, "the irreplaceability of a drug for the treatment of epilepsy (which is used by around 500,000 Italians) is scientifically confirmed by professional literature (e.g. E. Perrucca - Epilepsia n 6) if the drug determines the control of epileptic seizures or if in condition of drug resistance, approximately 30% of cases, it determines significant improvements in terms of frequency or type of seizures”. This irreplaceability of drugs under these conditions - reports the AICE again - is the cornerstone of the "AIFA Communication on inclusion in the transparency list of medicinal products containing Levetiracetam and Topiramate" of 07/27/2012 and of the AICE communications of 09/21/ 2012 and License dated 09/22/2012”. Unfortunately "Aifa's communication does not have the force of law and is only a recommendation that could be implemented by the Regions". Explains Pesce that “the equivalence between drugs, in this pathological condition, is not found even between generics themselves and the review of expenditure cannot be the cancellation of constitutional rights. Aice is a supporter that the new start-ups of therapies are made with lower cost drugs for the NHS and that price negotiations must not harm the right to health for people, who are already suffering from disabling pathologies".
The AICE secretary announces that "next Wednesday, if this barbarity is not remedied, other leaders of the association will join the hunger strike and we will be forced to implement more severe public actions".
