I mean being a writer is like being a psychoanalyst, but you don't get any patients.
The Food and Drug Administration works to protect the interests of all patients and provide them with reliable information about the potential effects of treatments. But government rules should not stand in the way of potentially lifesaving therapies for those who do not have much time or any other options.
President Trump has exposed the dirty secret of drug pricing: There is a shadowy third player in the transaction between patients and their pharmacists: middlemen who have taken a big kickback from the drug manufacturer, which may or may not be reflected in patients' out-of-pocket costs.
Patients who face long odds and terminal illnesses do not always have access to the latest drugs in clinical trials. They don't want to give up, but they don't have years to wait for new drugs to receive FDA approval.
Studies show that Avastin can prolong the lives of patients with late-stage breast and lung cancer by several months when the drug is combined with existing therapies.
HealthWell is just one of several foundations that assist patients in making their insurance co-payments for expensive drugs.
Federal laws against kickbacks bar pharmaceutical companies from directly giving money to patients for co-payments on the drugs they make.
When the FDA forces an old drug off the market, patients have very little say in the matter. Patients have even less of a say when the FDA chooses not to approve a new drug. Instead, we are supposed to rely on the FDA's judgment and be grateful. But can the FDA really make a choice that is appropriate for everyone? Of course not.
I don't know what has caused this reawakening in academia. Obama? The GOP's assaults on science and on patients? Jon Stewart? I'm not at all sure. I just know I don't feel nearly as alone in academia as I used to. I'm feeling increasingly surrounded by fellow Ph.D.'s and by M.D.'s who seem to be taking a lot of things personally.
Our role is to develop techniques that allow us to provide emergency life-saving procedures to injured patients in an extreme, remote environment without the presence of a physician.
