Can Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Be Used to Deny Treatment?
Some authors have invoked cost-effectiveness analysis to question whether HAART should be provided in resource-poor areas [7–9]. However, it is important to note that cost-effectiveness analysis by itself never implies that particular programs should or should not be funded—it only allows their relative benefits to be ranked. If health budgets are insufficient, many health interventions that deliver great benefits will appear unfavorable because the budget will have been exhausted by competing uses that offer even greater value. Therefore, when an obviously beneficial and life-saving service is deemed insufficiently cost-effective, it is an indictment of the parsimony of the health budget itself, not of the method of cost-effectiveness analysis.
