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Hi All

I have just heard that Maurice Saatchi is on the Jeremy Vine show, talking about his wife's treatment. The show is starting now, noon, though I don't know what time he will be on.

Best wishes

Ann

[Whippit]

Thanks so much Ann. Have just switched on. A good reason to stay in bed a little longer this morning!

Hopefully a discussion thread will follow after the article. xxxx Love to you all, Annie

[Hidden]

Cheers love x G x

[wendydee]

Thanks, Annie. Just switched on. We can catch up on listen again if it's already been on

Love W xx

[Hidden in reply to wendydee]

Hi Wendy

This interview started just as I was returning to work after my lunch break. So wanted to hear it. Been searching the internet since I got home at 5.15pm to see if I can catch up on it, but can't find out how........Any help would be gratefully received.

Chris x x

[Whippit]

It was brilliant but I think it was nearly the last item on the programme. It would be fantastic to think a high-profile person like him can raise the status of research into Ovarian Cancer and encourage researchers to 'look outside the box'. Just think of that teenager who discovered a screening test for pancreatic cancer.

Perhaps they ought to add Ovarian Cancer Research to the GCSE curriculum! lol

[Hidden]

Maurice Saatchi ... I would bet my bottom dollar, Maurice wouldn't want to hurt me by his conversation but it's a conversation that needs to be had, isn't it?

[wendydee]

I found this on Twitter. More power to him

9:19PM BST 28 Apr 201377 Comments

His actual words are unemphatic, even flat, but when Maurice Saatchi deploys his owlish stare and quietly announces: “I intend to cure cancer, you see. I mean to do it. I expect to do it,” it produces the intended shiver of expectation. Lord Saatchi doesn’t mean that he will reach the Holy Grail of medical science himself – an advertising man must be allowed to overstate his case for effect – but he believes that by changing the law to encourage and protect doctors who have new ideas, he will provide the seedbed for someone to make a cancer breakthrough.

Since his wife, the novelist Josephine Hart, died of ovarian cancer almost two years ago, Saatchi has devoted himself night and day to investigating the reasons why cancer is still so stubbornly rampant. Poor chap, people will say, unhinged by grief. He is not ashamed to admit he is motivated by personal sorrow, and by the shock of what cancer patients have to endure. But his loss, he says, does not negate his findings. “Grief is not a disqualification for rational thought.”

Tomorrow, he will tell the Royal Society of Medicine why cancer science has not yet found its Newton. “I am not going to rehearse for them that cancer is relentless, remorseless, merciless,” he says. “Or weary them with the fact that the treatment for cancer is medieval, degrading and ineffective. I’m going to show that scientific progress has been stopped by law.”

He will argue that the law – not lack of money or brain power – is the real barrier to progress, because the fear of litigation is holding cancer doctors back, forcing them to follow the well-trodden paths of standard procedure. His Medical Innovation Bill, launched in the House of Lords in December, is intended to liberate those doctors with brilliant ideas.

Saatchi, 66, is a political realist. Famous for the advertising agencies he set up with his brother, Charles, and for their work for the Conservative Party (which included the 1979 “Labour isn’t working” poster), he knows that the best he can hope for is benevolent neutrality from the Government as the Bill makes its way through Parliament. But perhaps it should be remembered that he has twice before helped to change the law – first to raise the tax threshold, then to amend the Bank of England Act. “They both took a long time.”

[Hidden in reply to wendydee]

Thank you Wendy, this puts it very well. I can only wish him luck. xx

[wendydee]

If anyone wants to listen, It's on bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01shp6t you need to press the listen again button and scroll the slider along to about 1:39. It's on after the Sinead O'Connor song.

Hope it works

Love Wendy xx

[Hidden]

I've written at length twice before here but removed the posts when a few people said they'd written to him but got no reply, it made me realise that we're not his intended audience. We're, and others like us, are the people he wants to help. He's a dogged crusader and very powerful in his determination. The reason doctors have to follow set protocols is for patient safety. I think he is right that they should be able to deviate from set procedures to allow innovation without the threat of being sued but people don't want to be lab mice either. I think there needs to be an Ethics Group set up to monitor and advise on change so that when a law is passed, it has been carefully considered. I say when and not if because it has to change doesn't it? Whilst there are people like this man in the world, there's concrete hope for everyone. X x

[drdu in reply to Hidden]

I just think he should reply to emails/letters. I sent him both and got no reply whatsoever.

Eileen xx

[Hidden]

There is nothing like an emotional motive to get the message across is there? and whilst I have admiration for his determination, and for him....I don't altogether agree with his view on this. Love x G x

[Hidden]

I was thinking that even if doctors wanted to use more innovative treatments, wouldn't there still be a problem getting the drugs via the NHS ? Surely NICE would only allow tried and tested drugs and for my type of PPC, there are few people to trial the drugs on so for me, I don't feel a lot would change unless the way NICE does business changes too?

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Hi Tina a good point love x G x

[drdu in reply to Hidden]

Aspirin, ibuprofen, and other NSAIDs eg celecoxib, are well used in other conditions and well known and tried because of that, likewise metformin, and so why all the delay??

Eileen xx