In the Shropshire Star, is the story of Susan Morgan, 41, diagnosed with the type of breast cancer that can benefit from treatment with Herceptin. But, unless she is able to pay £47,000 for the drug, she will not be treated with it because her primary care trust will not cover the cost.

Rather than sit and watch her mother die because they can not afford a drug that might prolong her mother's life, Katie, 10, decided to take matters into her own hands. First, Katie started selling eggs from the family farm to raise money for her mother. Then she wrote a passionate letter to the local MP pleading for help on behalf of her mother's life. The letter made the news, and an anonymous benefactor has offered to pay for Ms. Morgan's cancer drug treatment with Herceptin. I am pleased that Katie's mother will be able to have access to the drug now, but so terribly sad that a young girl had to be put through the emotional trauma and fear that prompted her to write a letter asking for help to save her mother's life. Even more unfortunate, this is not an isolated case.

Women Fighting for Herceptin, a British group calling on the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, NICE, to approve Herceptin, a drug used to treat women with HER2/neu receptor positive breast cancer, as a first line treatment for early-stage breast cancer. The group wants the expensive life-saving drug treatment made freely available to all women with HER-2 positive breast cancer. In an act of civil disobedience, Jayne Sullivan staged a one-woman protest at the National Assembly in Cardiff Bay, Wales, until her government agreed to end the postcard lottery of medical care for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Her government had refused to grant women with early-stage breast cancer access to the drug Herceptin. This story is not over, as women in parts of the UK continue to fight not only cancer, but a universal health system that is denying them access to cancer drug treatment.