After
George Leuzzi pays final respects to his wife on Tuesday at her
funeral, he will turn his attention to caring for their young daughter
and bringing an end to a procedure that claimed 44-year-old Brenda.
"Now
that she's passed I will do my part to carry on what she started," he
said. "I will help as much as I can to get this removed."
Brenda Leuzzi died 25 months after fibroid surgery through minimally invasive procedure that involved power morcellation.
At the time, no one knew the fibroids, thought to be innocent growths,
were cancerous. There is no definitive pre-surgery test to determine
whether fibroids are benign. Power morcellation shreds tissue so that it
can be removed through small incisions of minimally invasive surgery.
In so doing, it can send bits of cancer to other parts of the abdomen,
where they can "seed."
A grassroots effort to end power
morcellation has been going on for just about a year, since the problem
was brought to light by a physician whose wife had an undetected cancer
worsened by the procedure.
The Food and Drug Administration has
issued advisories against the procedure and the leading manufacturer,
Johnson & Johnson, has asked providers to return the devices. But
other manufacturers have them on the market. The FDA held hearings in
July about the safety of the procedure.
The same day that George
Leuzzi buried his wife, Morgan Liscinsky of the FDA press office
answered a request for an update with, "I have no new information to
share since you contacted me last month."
Sens. Chuck Schumer and
Kirsten Gillibrand wrote in August to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.
That letter was on behalf of Jim Leary of Greece, whose wife, Barbara,
died last year after having undergone a procedure that involved
morcellation.
Asked what the senators are doing to step up
pressure, Gillibrand spokesman Jacob Fromer responded: "It is deeply
frustrating to the Senator that while the FDA discourages the use of
these very devices they won't take the necessary action to ban them. She
will continue to communicate her concerns to the commissioner.
Kirsten's thoughts and prayers are with the Leuzzi family, particularly
their young daughter, Peyton."
Schumer spokesman Max Dworin said
the office "followed up with the FDA (Monday), urging them again to call
on manufacturers to voluntarily recall these devices, and we will
continue to push."
Schumer's statement Monday read, ""The passing
of Brenda Leuzzi is tragic and further underscores the urgency for all
firms to voluntarily recall these devices until more thorough testing
can be done. The FDA should act before another family has to experience
what the Leuzzi family is going through right now. My thoughts and
prayers go out to the entire Leuzzi family."
George Leuzzi is more
adamant than Schumer. "I'm very disappointed in the FDA. They should
have banned this by now. They're just stalling and finding some other
way to convince themselves it's OK. If anybody saw Brenda and the way
she died, it's pretty far from OK. I wouldn't wish it on my worst
enemy."
George Leuzzi said he's received an uncountable number of
texts and emails since he posted on a leiomyosarcoma Facebook page news
of Brenda's death.
"Cancer is the enemy, but any procedure that
would enhance it and make it worse and put someone in a position to have
no way of rebounding from it is criminal," he said.
As it was during Brenda's illness, her husband's focus is on his wife.
"I
want her to be remembered. I don't want her to be forgotten, especially
because what she died for was completely unnecessary."
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Are California doctors violating their Hippocratic oaths in California Prop 45 fight?
Like generations of doctors before us, when each of us graduated from medical school, we were asked to raise our hand and recite the Hippocratic Oath. This was a defining moment in many of our lives. Reciting the words carried great weight and purpose: "I will apply all measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice."
It is through the prism of these words that I watch you appearing in advertisements against Proposition 45 and react in horror. Dr. Amy Nguyen Howell, Dr. Marshall Morgan, and Dr. John Maa, I believe you are betraying your Hippocratic Oaths, and Registered Nurse Candace Campbell, I believe you are betraying the Nightingale Pledge. In fact, in your roles advocating against Prop 45, you are spreading lies designed to mislead and scare the public -- our patients -- in order to protect the insurance industry. It is unconscionable.
The facts are that since 2002, health insurance premiums have increased 185%, while wages for the bottom 70% of our state have remained stagnant. During this same time, California health insurers have issued over 45.7 million denials of treatment, while making record profits which have translated into record cash reserves in the billions.
So let's take a real look at your arguments:
In advertisements paid for by the health insurance industry, you claim that we should keep the new "independent commission" and that special interests are sponsoring Proposition 45 to give "one politician" new power over our health care -- including what treatment options our health insurance covers.
First off, there is absolutely no conflict between this new "independent commission" -- Covered California -- and Prop 45. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was written to accommodate just this sort of rate regulation, and 35 other states already have some version of it.
Covered California is actually run by purely political appointees, some of who have a long cozy history with the private insurance industry. Unlike the State Insurance Commissioner, who is publicly elected to serve as the ultimate consumer protector, the citizens of California have no say in who is appointed to this "independent commission" whereas the Insurance Commissioner is publicly accountable and can be voted out of office.
As for giving the Insurance Commissioner new power over treatment options, this is false on so many levels. First and foremost, it is the private health insurance industry and their administrators, many of who have never cared for a patient, who are denying care, while telling doctors what treatment and drugs they can provide. Our Insurance Commissioner does not do this now and Prop 45 will not give him the authority to do so in the future.
In fact, Prop 45 would simply apply the same regulatory framework to health insurance which has proven so successful regulating auto, home, and medical malpractice insurance in California. Auto insurance rates have actually decreased in the 26 years since Prop 103, saving Californians billions of dollars in premiums. In 2012, our state Insurance Commissioner actually saved doctors like yourselves over $44 million in excessive malpractice premiums using the very same system proposed in Prop 45.
With regard to special interests funding Prop 45, it is actually Big Insurance -- Kaiser Permanente, Well Point, and Blue Shield -- that is spending $37 million of our patients' premium dollars to try and kill Prop 45.
For every dollar that is spent on this campaign trying to protect patients against excessive, unreasonable health insurance rate increases, Big Insurance is spending almost 40 times as much to protect their lucrative status quo.
So, I urge you to stop spreading these lies. I challenge each of you to publicly debate the facts in person. Our patients are suffering mentally and physically from outrageous rate increases, and as the Hippocratic Oath makes clear, we must "keep them from harm and injustice." I call on you to renounce your opposition to Prop 45 and remember the promise you once made to all of your future patients.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Should we provide health care for all? Does this woman deserve it?
Should we have a single payer system?
I’m the welfare mom with a Coach purse
I know you're judging me, asking: How can you own a fancy purse when you can't afford your baby? Let me explain
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