These are the 6 studies we focus on
They will be no surprise to RCC folks
Our question is simple:
Did pts assigned to the control arm get appropriate post protocol care?
I pray the answer is yes!
Here is the key figure πππ
Let me walk you through it...
The top color is acceptable
Obviously if you are still on TKI front line, that's fine
The bottom bar is also good
Post protocol IO is the standard of care second line treatment
This color is not ideal
Come on, we all know the other post protocol options lack the desirable feature of durability & we have some head to head trials.
Come on... you know it is not ideal...
And this color is very problematic
These trial patients should largely be getting second line therapy
And PLEASE do not reply to me with real world data on subsequent lines, as this is not all comers, but TRIAL pts, it should be higher than RWD
What is the point?
If companies want to move their costly combos to the front line, they should prove that routine front-line administration of the combo is superior to sequencing--
that is literally the Q facing doctors & patients...
BUT...
... it is much easier to show that when you provide inappropriately poor post-protocol care in the control arm... and the easiest way to achieve that is...
recruit in countries where post protocol therapy is beneath the US standard.
It is shocking US FDA accepts this!
This is our take home message
Billions of dollars on the line
Loads of patient toxicity and we still don't have a trial that seeks the honest scientific answer
... many of these people who are losing their jobs right now risk their own personal safety to work in the hospital before there was a vaccine. When you needed them.
These people don't disappear from America either, and their fate is tied to all our fate.
Pressuring people to get vaccinated will increase vaccination rate some fraction and that will provide some marginal extra protection to people who've already chosen to be vaccinated, but it will also lead to firings and that will provide negative countervailing results..
My NEW op-ed is out in @usnews!
Mandating 12-18 year old kids get 2 doses of COVID19 vaccine & throwing them out of school if they don't is one of the most regressive, dangerous, and misguided policies in recent years, and I condemn it
The CDC director, a political appointee, siding with the President, & his pre-ordained plan, against the advice of the ACIP advisors, with 0 RCTs measuring clinical outcomes & no idea of adverse events is not "doing one's job" it is politics > science, precisely what we feared π§΅
The process that led up to Pfizer booster is someday going to be seen as what many dreaded during the Trump administration.
The White House decided during the week of Sept 20, boosters will be made available, and all gears of drug regulation made it happen
Consider the 24 year old male health care aid living in Seattle who received 2 doses of Pfizer vax, and is now granted a path to take dose 3.
Can any medical expert answer 2 questions:
Do the benefits exceed the harms to this individual?
Is he a 'safer' employee?