Obama's Watergate

Avastin, combined with the drug paclitaxel is the original study, that the FDA approved.

 

Let's get some things clarified here. 

1) The FDA gave the drug, when used for breast cancer, a preliminary approval, as it was already being used in other cancer cases, until further tests could be done. 

2) The way science works, the way this sort of drug testing works, is through repetition and diversity. You cannot simply test the drug once under one combination once and give it approval. There are a number of reasons for this. Mainly, not everyone can be given Taxol. Not everyone's cancer warrants the use of Taxol. Like I said, the FDA simply cannot approve a drug because it might work under some certain conditions with one drug in one non-replicated study, especially when the side effects are such that it could cause harm to the actual anti-cancer medications if exposure is prolonged. 

Then they did some other studies, that didn't use A+P =5 1/2 months instead they tried different drug combinations.

You're attempted logic equations are simply not how extremely powerful and potentially dangerous medications are tested. There is a reason the threshold of significance level when testing these types of medications, and any medication really, is so extremely high. 

Medications are not tested, or approved, under such light conditions. 

Now I didn't make up that fact that the decision to stop using Avastin was because of cost... http://www.nyhealthinsurer.com/articles/coverage-for-avastin

Yes, you very much did. 

What, pray tell, does one private insurance company's rantings about "looming universal healthcare" have to do, at all, with the FDA? 

A ranting that, funny enough, never mentions the failure of any of the tests after the preliminary approval to find any meaningful extension of life or improvement of patient quality.  

and because of a few of the predominant side effects such as the following."

It's interesting that you chose not to list the "few" side effects. 

This was a major part of their decision to revoke the approval for Avastin. 

Simply put, the success of the drug has to outweigh the side effects in a lasting way. 

The side effects — which the four studies showed increase with prolonged exposure to the drug — are:

• Severe high blood pressure, 
• Massive bleeding or internal hemorrhaging 
• Heart attacks
• Perforations of the stomach and intestines. 

This was not aspirin. This was a seriously heavy injected medication with very serious side effects. The FDA's decision, based on the lack of significant improvement in four followup studies, was weighed by the exposure of the patient — who is potentially already in a state of bodily duress both from cancer and from the chemotherapy and anti-growth drugs they may also be taking. It would be irresponsible to expose a patient to those side effects when a useful outcome of the drug cannot be determined. 

So if you have breast cancer, and you want to live a few extra months, since the FDA dropped it,  and your insurance followed them, and doesn't cover it anymore, wouldn't that mean it was "banned" to you?

No. That's not what banned means. Banned means the FDA decides the drug is potentially dangerous and orders the product out of the medical closets of clinics and hospitals. Banned is when the FDA orders the drug to be no-longer prescribed for any reason. Banned means the drug is no longer legal to prescribe. Banned means the FDA pays for PSAs to warn of the danger of the dug and potentially coerces the company itself into airing commercials explaining the need to immediately stop taking the drug. 

Avastin has not, in any way, shape, or form, been banned. That continues to be a lie told by you in this thread. 

Avastin can still be prescribed for breast cancer. But, without FDA approval, most insurance companies will not cover it. 

Now, your direction of anger here should be to the insurance companies, not to the FDA. 

You can no longer get it,

You absolutely can get it. Tallying everything up, we're now at three lies in this conversation. 

If you:

1. Have a doctor that is still willing to prescribe Avastin for breast cancer. 
2. Have a health insurance company that will still cover it, OR are able to pay for the drug out of pocket 

The free market doesn't decide on a drug when the FDA stops approval for it in ONE type of cancer,  yet keeps it for other "less common" cancers because of its success!

But. What? 

If this is the case, why exactly was Avastin so popular and prescribed so often before it had preliminary approval, but simply for kidney, colon and prostate cancers? 

Not all cancer is equal. "Cancer" isn't even a disease. It's a type of disease, like a category. Kidney cancer, for example, is fundamentally different than breast cancer. Avastin is an angiogenesis inhibitor. It works by blocking new blood vessels from growing. It's not a chemotherapy drug. It is used in complimentary fashion with anti-cancer medications to help prevent the spread of hurt areas. That spread of cancerous growth is going to be completely different, and react completely different to an angiogenesis inhibitor, depending on the number of blood vessels in the areas. Thus its succes in assisting in kidney cancer treatment. 

It was clearly a "cost saving" decision from Obamacare

They why is the drug still covered by Medicare? 

(weird as tons of insurance companies now don't pay for Avastin for breast cancer... very strange... )

Then go after the insurance companies, not the FDA. 

Most insurance companies choose to not cover drugs that are not approved by the FDA. If you want them to do so, write them letters, call them. It's the FDA's job to test and approve drugs, that's it.