haven't got $200,000 laying around so it might as well be a million dollars
Posted on 04/15/2014 6:42:58 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
Link only, Bloomberg...Costly new hepatitis C drugs from Gilead, Merck show near total cure rates
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
FYI...
This is good news, but I can’t start surfing Sewers & Drainpipe again until they find a cure for Hepatitis A.
It costs a lot to develop these things, I hope they can cure diabetes and kidney failure someday
This would be good news indeed. HCV is no fun. I did 6 months of chemo, thank goodness it worked. It doesn’t always. I knew a Viet Nam vet with HCV. Never did drugs, no tattoos, nothing. But he received an emergency transfusion after being wounded in 1969 in the RVN. 40 years later, he felt terrible and tested pos for HCV. Three rounds of chemo and still wasn’t cured. And the chemo nearly killed him.
haven't got $200,000 laying around so it might as well be a million dollars
If it truly cures Hepatitis C it is well worth the money. Hep C is costly, and even standard treatment is pricey. Many people go on to have chronic illness and then develop liver cancer. Compared to years of treatment and still losing productive lives to the disease, 200K is a bargain.
didn't say it wasn't a bargain, it's simply that i'll die before before i win the lottery... i did the whole interferon/ribivirin thing TWICE when my ins covered prescriptions, my current ins doesn't cover Rx at all, so...
oh yeah, i now have micro-nodular cirrhosis too
well, i never planned to live forever anyway
“It costs a lot to develop these things, I hope they can cure diabetes and kidney failure someday”
Yes, they do. There’s a reason only one nation in the world really does any significant pharmaceutical development - our medical patent protection laws give a private company a chance to actually make a profit after they spend the billions necessary to develop and bring to market a new drug.
It’s more than a little concerning to realize that it wouldn’t take much mucking about with our tax, patent, or private property laws in order to destroy the world’s largest engine of medical research. A little bit of socialism and then we’re back to the old system of “eh, chew some weeds and see if it goes away” as far as research goes.
Yep!!
Go see the doctor anyway. There are grants and Gilead has a program to help people obtain the medicine. Talk to your doctor, he may know how to help you, if not go to a community clinic and ask them.
I am almost 1/2 way thru this treatment. I have done the interferon/ribivirin twice. Worked while I was on treatment, but 30 days post treatment, the HCV was back. I have 4/5 grade cirrhosis and my aorta is canalizing into my abdomen.
My liver enzyme numbers are now down to 20-22 range. Previously they were in excess of 250-200.
The Sovaldi doesn’t have the side-effects the interferon had. I am taking the Sovaldi with ribivirin too. One Sovaldi pill in the morning with 3 ribivirins and in the evening 3 more ribivirin tablets.
The only side effects are a slight anemia and high billirubin levels. Not enough to turn me yellow however.
Next month at the halfway point we’ll be doing an RNA Viral Load test to measure the amount of virus in my system. I’m very excited about what we’ll find. I am getting more energy every day. Some days in the past I have had such fatigue, I have had to take a nap after taking a shower and a cup of coffee/tea!
This disease really sucks, I want it gone. I have had it 40 years and the past 15 have been Hell.
My best friend died from cirrhosis of the liver caused by hep c. They figured she got hep c from a needle prick while working in a hospital before they decided used needles were dangerous.
She was on the transplant list and finally got one but by then she was just too sick to survive it.
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