In Support of a Patient-Driven Initiative and Petition to Lower the High Price of Cancer Drugs - Mayo Clinic

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 ....A cancer patient–based grassroots movement that advocates against the high price of cancer drugs can accomplish a great deal. One such movement, a petition, is already available and is actively collecting signees. It has been designed to be signed online on Change.org (short link URL: http://chn.ge/1DCWT1M) and is publicized on e-mail (stophighdrugcosts@gmail.com), on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/stophighdrugcosts), and on Twitter (@StopHighRxCosts), thus using contemporary methods to address a contemporary crisis. Those encouraged to sign the petition include patients, relatives, friends, supporters, health care professionals, and others. Should this petition or any other similar grassroots efforts generate in aggregate an immense number of unique supporters (eg, >1 million petition signees or a comparable mass action quantified in other terms), this quantified support can then be used by advocates, lobbyists, and others to advocate against the aforementioned harms generated by the high price of cancer drugs. With proper support of these grassroots efforts, and proper use of that support downstream, it should be possible to focus the attention of pharmaceutical companies on this problem and to encourage our elected representatives to more effectively advocate for the interests of their most important constituents among the stakeholders in cancer—American cancer patients.