A Cuban cancer treatment is coming to the United States and all MSNBC's Thomas Roberts could worry about is if America will "ruin" the drug. On Tuesday, Roberts hyped the possibilities of Cimavax, which fights lung cancer. Talking to Dr. Kelvin Lee of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Roberts fretted, "...The Cubans have created a drug that costs the government about a dollar per shot, which is unheard of in the cancer treatment. So, will the American market ruin it?"
Dr. Lee batted this away, assuring, "I think that there are any number of potential economic models one can envision where this would be attractive to U.S. pharmaceutical companies."
Not mentioned by Roberts was the tremendous amount of time, money and effort the United States has put into cancer research. As U.S. News and World Reports explained, America leads the world in spending on cancer drugs:
"Americans have access to more of the innovative drugs than any other country and they are seeing the benefits of those in terms of overall survival rates," [executive director of the IMS Institute Murray] Aitken says.
The report shows that the U.S. spends more on cancer drugs than any other country, making up 42.2 percent of total spending.
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These spending rates are increasing because the medicines for treating cancer aren't only more expensive – they are better. People are living longer under treatment, and cancer is diagnosed early because of increased screenings. Now, 2 out of 3 Americans survive at least five years after a diagnosis. In 1990, just over half lived that long.
In April, after Barack Obama normalized relations with Cuba, Roberts's colleague, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, worried that U.S. tourists would be a "plague" on Cuba. Another anchor on the network, Andrea Mitchell, celebrated Castro's 88th birthday on August 13, 2014.
This love for communist Cuba isn't new amongst journalists. In 2002, ABC's Barbara Walters enthused, "For Castro, freedom starts with education. And if literacy alone were the yardstick, Cuba would rank as one of the freest nations on Earth. The literacy rate is 96 percent." In 2014, Walters proved she was still infatuated, fawning over the "charismatic" communist.
A partial transcript is below:
MSNBC Live
5/12/15
2:53THOMAS ROBERTS: Under the vintage cars and faded facades, Cuba is a gem of the world for medical research. So now that the U.S. is moving toward a freer exchange of goods, services and information with the island nation, scientists here are excited about the possibilities in medical advancements. At the top of the list, Cimavax. It's a lung cancer vaccine that has stopped tumors from growing and metastasizing and even extended the lives of patients who used it. Roswell Park Cancer institute in Buffalo, New York has finalized an agreement to develop the vaccine and begin clinical trials in the U.S. And they hope to get the drug on track to win FDA approval.
...ROBERTS: Doctor, the possibility and potential lucrative deal that Roswell has here because the Cubans have created a drug that costs the government about a dollar per shot, which is unheard of in the cancer treatment. So, will the American market ruin it?
DR. KELVIN LEE (Roswell Park Cancer Institute): Well, I think it's a little bit early for us to talk about the commercialization potential in the United States and how much things would cost. But, I mean, if one looks at the potential for prevention, one is talking maybe a dollar a dose, but maybe hundreds of millions of people that would be potential patients or people to get vaccinated. So I think that the economics of the issue I think are a little bit in the future. We'll have to see how the vaccine does in terms of its clinical trials, how safe it is, when we do those trials here at Roswell Park. But I think that there are any number of potential economic models one can envision where this would be attractive to U.S. pharmaceutical companies.
