Hic sunt dracones: the future of health technology assessment--one economist's perspective.

The dragons mentioned in the title are (a) the failure of HTA methodologists to develop--and hence practitioners to use--tools for the consideration of equity in economic appraisals of health care technologies; (b) a similar and reinforcing failure to devise and implement processes of decision making that would facilitate the incorporation of equity in HTA. The draconian consequence is that equity is hardly considered at all and certainly does not get the same consideration as efficiency. Some initial suggestions are made as to how these dragons may be slain.