Perhaps this isn't strictly list-business but today's Z-Net commentary does
provide a short narrative about health-care and the implications of the
Labour Party drive to 'improve by privatising' the NHS in favour of
'American models'.
Best wishes
Tom
>Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 19:57:17 -0700
>From: ZNet Commentaries <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Guellec / If You Can't Pay For Chemotherapy - You'll Die!! / Oct 24
>To: [log in to unmask]
>MIME-version: 1.0
>X-Comment: Middlesex University has scanned this message for viruses.
>
>
>Today's commentary:
>http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-10/24guellec.cfm
>
>==================================
>
>ZNet Commentary
>If You Can't Pay For Chemotherapy - You'll Die!! October 24, 2001
>By Dorothy Guellec
>
>It is a shame that we all can't, or won't, see what is going on!
>Taxol, a drug discovered by the government and used for many of the
>100 or so different kinds of cancers has gone generic. It is now 3
>years beyond the patient expiration. The cost to consumers is up to
>$15,000 a patient. Bristol-Myers Squibb has priced Taxol out of the
>reach of public institutions. Pretty soon according to Washington
>rumors Medicare efforts to cap outpatient costs could lead to higher
>spending
>
>I can tell you from personal experience (diagnosed and operated on
>May 23rd) with Ovarian Cancer stage III (CO (that if I were not
>eligible for Medicare (by one year) I would not have 18 weeks of
>chemotherapy with a 30% chance of survival. The number of years
>Bristol Myers Squibb used lawsuits to delay the introduction of
>generic Taxol, a drug discovered by the government that treats breast
>cancer, complications of AIDS and ovarian cancer is 3.
>
>"In a truly reprehensible example of corporate welfare and greed
>Bristol Myers Squibb continues to charge monopoly prices (a reported
>2,000% mark up) for Taxol, a life-sustaining drug developed with
>millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded research and urgently needed
>by women stricken with breast and ovarian cancers and AIDS patients
>with Kaposi's Sarcoma." Some wise friend of mine, now deceased, said
>"If you can fix a problem with money, even if you don't have the
>money, you don't have a problem." How wise he was, brain tumors and
>some of the 100 odd cancers, and other life threatening illnesses
>have no cure at all - money aside.
>
>Because of my present situation this commentary cannot be long and as
>detailed as it usually is.
>
>If the reader visits a cancer patient above all (1) don't unload your
>own problems. Remember it is the patient who is sick (2) Ask what you
>can do to make life a bit more bearable and don't nag.
>
>P.S. my treatments cost $2759 a week for TaxoL AND $2,699 FOR
>Scisplantin and bendry.
>
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