Briton sells World Cup tickets to buy cancer drug

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2006

LONDON (AFP) — A young cancer sufferer has said he had been forced into selling his World Cup semi-final tickets to raise cash for his treatment.

Pharmacy student Nicholas Keher, 23, from Formby, near Liverpool in northwest England, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in February.

The drug Avastin, which specialists claim will give him the best chance of survival, is not available on Britain's free-healthcare-for-all National Health Service (NHS).

Keher believes the drug has not been sanctioned for use because it is very expensive. He is trying to raise 50,000 pounds to buy the treatment himself by auctioning his prized tickets to the July 5 match.

"I have always been told by the specialists that my best chance of survival is through using Avastin," the...