Foundation, FIM, Seeks Romney Backing for Its Proposal to Reduce Health Care Costs by Accelerating Medical Discovery: FIM Announces the Launch of the Cure Care Initiative
MOUNTAINSIDE, N.J., Oct. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The physician chairman of the well-established non-profit group, FIM, the Foundation for Innovation in Medicine, appealed in a letter to Mitt Romney to back a unique plan to reduce health care costs by speeding up medical discovery. Stephen L. DeFelice, said in his letter, "No matter how you toss the coin, current policies and future plans will ultimately ration pharmaceuticals, medical devices and hospitalization as well as decrease physician accessibility to almost everyone."
He called for Mr. Romney to back a plan that would accelerate the cure rate of diseases and disabilities beginning in the short term. Recently, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann agreed with the FIM approach about a "cure" path approach. Due to prohibitive costs and risks to conduct clinical studies on potential, exciting new medical breakthroughs, fewer cures will be discovered, Dr. DeFelice points out.
FIM has proposed the Doctornaut Act which would permit physician volunteers to volunteer for clinical trials with markedly reduced barriers than non-physician volunteers to test more therapies. "Creative medical minds are out there sitting on their hands when they could be clinically testing potential therapies in doctors (doctornauts) that cannot be done in today's anti-innovative, anti-patient environment," his letter explains.
Dr. DeFelice worked with Senator Bill Frist, also a physician, to draft the Doctornaut Act. He, as an example, singled out a report released by the Alzheimer's Association that estimated costs to treat the disease from 2010 to 2050 will exceed $20 trillion, in today's dollars. There are also unsustainable increases in costs for many other maladies where cures would be the remedy.
Full text of Dr. DeFelice's letter to Governor Romney, a more complete explanation of the rationale behind the Doctornaut Act, and a Discussion Draft of the Doctornaut Act circulated by Senator Frist can be found at www.fimdefelice.org.
SOURCE The Foundation for Innovation in Medicine
Share this article