Welcome to Buster's Blog

Irregular commentary on whatever's on my mind -- politics, sports, current events, and life in general. After twenty years of writing business and community newsletters, fifteen years of fantasy baseball newsletters, and two years of email "columns", this is, I suppose, the inevitable result: the awful conceit that someone might actually care to read what I have to say. Posts may be added often, rarely, or never again. As always, my mood and motivation are unpredictable.

Buster Gammons















Sunday, March 16, 2014

Hep C "Hope"? Better Hope You Won The Lottery


I just read something that surprised me, but it shouldn't have.  You may recall a recent post, "An Hour Of Network TV," where I listed all 39 commercials that appeared during the 6:30 to 7:30 time slot.  Most of the ads were for prescription medications and health and beauty products.

One of those TV ads that night was promoting a website, HepCHope.com.  The site is from Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company selling a new prescription treatment for hepatitis C, which is a slow but serious liver disease.

Gilead's new treatment for hepatitis C is a pill.  They call it Solvaldi.  It is not a vaccine or a cure.  It treats symptoms, of which hepatitis C often has very few.  The standard 12-week course of treatment of one Solvaldi pill a day costs $84,000!  One thousand dollars per pill!  (Why so much?  Because they can.  Corresponding value?  Not so much.)

Sovaldi is "covered" by some insurance and by Medicare.  And by all of us, to one degree or another.  Yippee.

Another great example of just how fucked up our American health care "system" really is.

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