HEALTH CARE CAN’T BE HEALTH GREED… BUT LIFE IS EXPENSIVE… So Some Greed Is OK..
Confusing care and greed is a flaw of the US healthcare system.
This is why, per capita, US healthcare costs 50% more than the most expensive European health care systems.
This being said, there should be room for expensive medical experimentation. A long article in the NYT bemoans apparent fraud in the case of surgical blood system rather experimental therapies.
OPERATING PROFITS. They Lost Their Legs. Doctors and Health Care Giants Profited.
Medical device makers have bankrolled a cottage industry of doctors and clinics that perform artery-clearing procedures that can lead to amputations.[1]
In 1955, Einstein refused an experimental procedure to treat an aneurysm which he was affected by. He didn’t want to foster research in that medical procedure. He died within weeks at 76 years old. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share; it is time to go.”
Now that procedure for abdominal aortic aneurysm is standard.
Some state of the art treatments cost millions of dollars. In the future, they will cost little and be very effective. I am prescribed a monoclonal antibody treatment which used to cost $15,000/year eight years ago, when it got authorized. Now it costs me (after insurance) $480 a year. And it is extremely effective.
I am moving to Europe to one of the most renowned health care systems in the world (for other reasons)… I am actually nervous that France’s health care will cover the treatment… Although the drug is made by a French pharmaceutical in collaboration with a US biotech firm… US health care has been a great source of profits for equipment makers, biotechs and pharmaceuticals, worldwide.
The argument that extravagant US health care spending has a good side, by fostering expensive progress can then be made… and must be kept in mind.
Patrice Ayme
French neurologist Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (1806–1875), in the 1861 edition of his book Paraplégie hypertrophique de l’enfance de cause cérébrale, described and detailed the case of a boy who had this condition. A year later, he presented photos of his patient in his Album de photographies pathologiques. In 1868, he gave an account of 13 other affected children…
Elevidys was approved through the Accelerated Approval pathway, under which the FDA may approve drugs for serious or life-threatening diseases where there is an unmet medical need and the drug is shown to have an effect that is reasonably likely to predict clinical benefit to patients (improving how patients feel or function, or whether they survive longer)… This pathway generally provides patients earlier access to promising new drugs while the company conducts clinical trials to verify the predicted clinical benefit.
Elevidys delivers a micro-dystrophin-encoding gene into a patient’s muscle tissue to prompt production of the micro-dystophin protein, which is necessary for patients with the disease because they can’t make the protein properly on their own.
The lack of this protein leads to a progressive loss of muscle strength. Sarepta’s treatment is meant to change the disease trajectory to a milder form., by providing with a shorter gene which is good enough…
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From NYT, linked article:
Kelly Hanna’s leg was amputated on a summer day in 2020, after a Michigan doctor who called himself the “leg saver” had damaged her arteries by snaking metal wires through them to clear away plaque.
It started with a festering wound on her left foot. Her podiatrist referred Ms. Hanna to Dr. Jihad Mustapha. Over 18 months, he performed at least that many artery-opening procedures on Ms. Hanna’s legs, telling her they would improve blood flow and prevent amputations.
They didn’t — for Ms. Hanna or many of his other patients. Surgeons at nearby hospitals had seen so many of his patients with amputations and other problems that they complained to Michigan’s medical board about his conduct. An insurance company told state authorities that 45 people had lost limbs after treatment at his clinics in the past four years
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 