Screencap source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-07-cancer-costs_N.htm
From the article:
In 2009 and 2010, as the economic collapse shuddered across the globe, oncologists in California noticed a troubling trend: Three patients who had had serious tumors under control for as long as eight years reappeared in the clinic with massive cancer regrowth which, in one case, required emergency surgery.
In retrospect, this downturn in fortunes should have been predictable: The economic recession had forced the patients to discontinue a life-extending medication.
“In all three cases, the patients developed new symptoms and came in after having missed an appointment or two without us knowing that they had stopped the drug,” said Dr. Katie Kelley, co-author of a letter-to-the-editor in the Aug. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, which describes the cases. Kelley is also assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
And there have been other such cases, both at UCSF and around the nation, either of patients stopping medications altogether or rationing in the hopes of making precious supplies last longer.
From me:
For purely arbitrary, man-made reasons, people are suffering and dying, after finding medicine they need to survive too expensive.
What is the difference between a mugger shooting you on the street for your wallet and a pharma company charging you more than you can afford for the drugs you need to live?
Why do we think the question “Your money or your life?” is a reasonable question to be asked?
What is wrong with our brains????
