Peter D. Jacobson – författare

More than ever before, the legal system plays a vital role in virtually every aspect of the current health care system. From the congressional debate over patients'' rights legislation to judicial rulings on the denial of health care services, the legal system is integrally involved in the organization, financing, and delivery of health care. This book explains how the legal system helps shape health care delivery and policy, explores new ways of looking at the relationship between law and medicine, and reflects on why it all matters.The story focuses on the judicial response to the advent of managed care, especially challenges to cost containment initiatives, and shows how the legal system has facilitated managed care''s dominance over the health care system. An equally important part of the story is the evolution of the relationship between physicians and attorneys and how their mutual antagonism affects patient care. In the end, the stories come together around a strategy for reconciling the difficult health policy choices the country faces and for restoring the physician-patient relationship to the center of health care delivery.

In the late 1980s, a promising new treatment for breast cancer emerged: high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or HDC/ABMT. By the 1990s, it had burst upon the oncology scene and disseminated rapidly before having been carefully evaluated. By the time published studies showed that the procedure was ineffective, more than 30,000 women had received the treatment, shortening their lives and adding to their suffering. This book tells of the rise and demise of HDC/ABMT for metastatic and early stage breast cancer, and fully explores the story''s implications, which go well beyond the immediate procedure, and beyond breast cancer, to how we in the United States evaluate other medical procedures, especially life-saving ones. It details how the factors that drove clinical use--patient demand, physician enthusiasm, media reporting, litigation, economic exploitation, and legislative and administrative mandates--converged to propel the procedure forward despite a lack of proven clinical effectiveness. It also analyzes the limited effect of technology assessments before randomized clinical trials evaluated decisively the procedure and the ramifications of this system on healthcare today. Sections of the book consider the initial conditions surrounding the emergence of the new breast cancer treatment, the drivers of clinical use, and the struggle for evidence-based medicine. A concluding section considers the significance of the story for our healthcare system.

In the late 1980s, a promising new treatment for breast cancer emerged: high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or HDC/ABMT. By the 1990s, it had burst upon the oncology scene and disseminated rapidly before having been carefully evaluated. By the time published studies showed that the procedure was ineffective, more than 30,000 women had received the treatment, shortening their lives and adding to their suffering. This book tells of the rise and demise of HDC/ABMT for metastatic and early stage breast cancer, and fully explores the story's implications, which go well beyond the immediate procedure, and beyond breast cancer, to how we evaluate other medical procedures, especially life-saving ones. It details how the factors that drove clinical use - patient demand, physician enthusiasm, media reporting, litigation, economic exploitation, and legislative and administrative mandates - converged to propel the procedure forward despite a lack of proven clinical effectiveness. It also analyses the failure of the technology assessments and randomised clinical trials that evaluated the procedure and the ramifications of this flawed system on healthcare today.Sections of the book consider the initial conditions surrounding the emergence of the new breast cancer treatment, the drivers of clinical use, and the struggle for evidence-based medicine. A concluding section considers the significance of the story for our healthcare system.