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Court rejects petition to add drugs to state-subsidized basket By Yuval Azoulay and Tomer Zarchin The High Court of Justice yesterday rejected a petition calling for three cancer-treating drugs to be included in the state-subsidized drug basket. The petition, initially submitted in 2005, was dragged through the court system for three years, and many of the petitioners have since died of cancer. The appellants asked the court to include three drugs in the basket: Avastin and Arbitox, for patients with intestinal cancer, and Taxotere, for prostate cancer. Advertisement The government decided to include Avastin and Taxotere in August 2006, but Arbitox remains unlisted. In their decision, the justices stated that they did not think the court needed to overrule decisions on the basket's makeup. However, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch added that rules and regulations were needed for selecting committee members. "Given its power and the complexity of the issues it considers, it seems like the time is right to set a legal framework for its activities," Beinisch said regarding the committee. One of the petitioners who died before the ruling yesterday was Yaakov Shiber of Bat Yam. "He had to fund the medicine himself," said his son, Attorney Yair Shiber, yesterday. "It cost him 5,000 euros every month. He had to draw on his and my mother's savings to fund them. He passed away a year after he was diagnosed, with the appeal still being discussed in court." Shiber's appeal asked for the inclusion of Arbitox in the basket. He died in October 2005, before the government decided to include it. "A man can work his entire life, pay national insurance and taxes, and a court tells him go and take out a private insurance policy because when you need help you won't get it," his son said yesterday. "The Supreme Court said it cannot include non-basic drugs on the list, and that hurts the most. I feel like I have to take care only of myself. The morals on which I was raised are out of date. Everything has changed." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Internal fighting Human rights groups say torture is widespread in Palestinian lockups. Danger looms Pentagon chief Robert Gates warns: War with Iran would be 'disastrous.'

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