Re: Enough whining about cost!
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Posted by Edward T on 00:40:55 2009/06/24
In Reply to:
Re: Enough whining about cost! posted by Jay
Okay, this will be a rather eclectic response to a few comments that have been made.
Regarding heart and other organ transplants being covered by insurance. They are covered because they are the only options left for the particular condition.
As far as being an activist for research, my actions have ranged from writing politicians (including the Bush administration for banning stem cell research); confronting organizations opposed to xeno and fetal tissue research; and participating in a fetal tissue implant at my expense of ten thousand dollars only to go into a panic when CDC sent me a letter saying I shouldn't have trusted the Russians and urged me to get an HIV test. I've also purchased stock in islet research companies only to have it "tank".
Of course the price will come down with "time". I can see fifteen more years easily passing before insurance covers this. I hear talk radio now with the young people calling in complaining about how much it costs to keep "old people" alive. In twenty years when I'm 73, some young person at an insurance company will deny my request for this treatment because I won't live long enough for them to recoupe their cost through premiums.
Regarding LCT doing this for the good of humanity - time will tell. If they openly share their procedure and allow world-wide unfettered breeding of these pigs (these pigs don't have to stay in New Zealand for the strain to stay pure), that will prove it is a humanitarian gesture. If they lock their procedure in a patent, and patent the pigs to deny others the right to breed them (as some companies have patented roses and certain vegetables), then it is not a humanitarian gesture.
Al - back around 2000 I posted my very first comment in this forum. You might remember it. I was criticizing all the research that fizzles out after so much hope. Specifically I was ragging on the campaign "A Cure by 2000" that had vaporized. I believe it was you who replied with a subject line of, "Whine, whine, whine". Hopefully in 2018 you won't have to reply to me with that subject line. I hope we can meet and shake hands in a world where diabetes is a thing of the past.
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