Greens call for Medicare schedule to cover PET scans

Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne has called on Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott to immediately make PET scans available on the Medicare schedule, and for state governments to immediately fund PET scanners for their major public hospitals across Australia, in order to save lives and ensure more targeted and effective treatment for cancer patients.

“The scientific evidence has been clear since 2000 that PET scans are safe and clinically effective,” Senator Milne said. “The Medical Science Advisory Committee report on Positron Emission Tomography that says otherwise should be withdrawn, now that it has been revealed that the findings of the medical expert supporting committee were altered.

“It is clear that expert evidence was altered in 2000, without the consent of the medical experts involved, to insert the word ‘potentially’ before ‘clinically effective’. This scandalous act has meant that cancer patients across Australia have been denied access to a technology that would have ensured them better and more targeted treatment.

“The Federal Government used this falsely created scientific uncertainty as an excuse not to pay for PET scans to be made available for all cancer patients across Australia. Instead, only those in a very restricted category, or who could afford to pay for the scans themselves, and were lucky enough to get access to one of the few machines in major metropolitan hospitals, have been able to reap the benefits.

“State governments have also refused to fund PET scanners in their public hospitals because of the supposed uncertainty about their clinical effectiveness. This decision must be reversed immediately,” Senator Milne said.