Posts by Lilith __
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Hard News: Hep C: When doctors do the…, in reply to Hazel Heal,
It's amazing what one person or a small group of passionate people can achieve. I just wish the health administrators could do it! And that there wasn't such a gulf between public health organisations and the people they serve.
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How awful. Individual drug researchers will have a variety of motivations, but drug companies exist to make profit, and I don’t think we can expect them to be philanthropic.
I would expect all doctors to be fighting for their patients’ health, though.The situation has parallels in this recent Buzzfeed story about HIV-prevention and the NHS:
"He had heard about a new drug regime that was being used to prevent HIV. The medication’s brand name is Truvada, and the regime – which involves taking this antiretroviral pill every day – is dubbed PrEP: pre-exposure prophylaxis. Owen, fearful of contracting the virus amid this unleashed world, couldn’t decide whether to start taking the drug, let alone how to obtain it.
PrEP was not available on the NHS and a private prescription would cost about £500 per month. But a major NHS study was underway to ascertain how effective the drug was, and who should be given it.”
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“This person said, ‘We have a handful of people who use our clinic and they have been self-sourcing generics from this website and we have been discreetly doing the monitoring – discreetly checking their blood periodically to check that there’s active levels of the drug.’”
In one sentence, everything was possible. There was somewhere to buy the non-branded versions of the drug – and at around £50 a month, a tenth of the price of a private prescription. And there was, potentially, a way to ensure the drugs were working properly. At the time, because PrEP was not available on the NHS, neither – officially – were the urine and blood tests needed to check that the drugs were not adversely affecting kidney function (which some antiretrovirals can do) and were not fake.”
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“A new and unexpected battle began in March 2016. After 18 months of discussions with the HIV sector, NHS England derailed the commissioning process – the path that leads to a drug being funded – for PrEP. Suddenly, all the doctors and charities who thought that it might soon become available to patients were left disappointed.”
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“A legal battle commenced, brought by the National AIDS Trust, to counter NHS England’s claim that it was not their responsibility to provide PrEP as HIV prevention was the job of local councils. At each step of this process, as news reports described what was happening, traffic to IWantPrEPNow continued to climb.You should read the full article because it’s amazing. But long story short, an HIV-positive homeless man saved thousands of others from becoming HIV-infected, by directing them to reliable sources of generic drugs. He did this for no payment, while GPs, sexual health clinics, and specialists felt unable to do it.
The guy’s a hero. But how did it come to this??
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fascinating result!
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Amberleigh Jack,
Hiiii Amberleigh! I think Nasty Woman needs capitals. Excellent WOTY IMO. :-)
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#BlackLivesMatter
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Hebe,
WHOOPS when I said Ward I meant Waiau! Ward’s in Marlborough, lol.
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Hard News: Public Address Word of the…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Except the 7.8 was in Canterbury! But many other big shakes near Seddon, etc. Which is why I think we need a collective name.
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A big shout-out to Checkpoint, for being there to fact-check and hold the powerful to account. A bright light in this dark year.
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Algorithm
Our new ruler which cares not about truthiness, only clickability and sharability.
Related: meme. It doesn't have to make sense, only get a response. -
Slightly OT, but do we have a name for the sequence of disasters of November 14th? I’ve heard the M7.8 described as the Hanmer EQ, Cheviot EQ, Culverden EQ, Kaikoura EQ, also that the epicentre was closest to Ward…
I believe Hastings has lingering resentment that the 1931 Hawkes Bay EQ is known as the Napier EQ, although it was closer to Hastings, and the damage was worse there.