#like what if the point of healthcare

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Last week, Johnson & Johnson agreed not to enforce their secondary patents on bedaquiline in most countries after a long public pressure campaign by TB activists around the world.

(A special shoutout to Nandita Venkatesan and Phumeza Tisilethe, the two women who led the charge to prevent the patent evergreening in India, which is the only reason generic bedaquiline is in production.)

But the problem of patent evergreening is everywhere--as this NYT story reports, Gilead intentionally denied people access to a drug they knew to be less toxic than alternatives because it wanted to extend its monopoly on HIV drugs for as long as possible.

Similarly, Johnson & Johnson has been intentionally denying people access to affordable bedaquiline, even though they knew they could make a profit even if they decreased the price by 65%.

What's especially galling is that both these companies benefit tremendously from public investment (bedaquiline research was funded primarily by the public), and so we end up paying for it twice--once to develop it, and once to have it available to the sick.

This is infuriating, and it is resulting in the real impoverishment and death of so many people. How does it end? With better governance and regulation. In this respect, India can be a model for us--their courts have done a much better job than U.S. ones of determining what really deserves to be patented and for how long. I'm hopeful that we can learn from the, but disgusted by this ongoing horror.

[inkskinned]

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

[mueritos]

i hope we continue to see more protests within the US military. i see a lot of leftists and folks who are anti-military who have such an open disdain for the people who are in the military, yet neglect to considering the conditions this country makes to produce ideology, poverty, and the illusion of choice to make all kinds of people choose to enlist in the military. You ever see those videos of ROTC kids recording each other asking why they joined the military and everyone's like, "healthcare", "it helped me go to college", "I was bored" or "free ptsd lol". I hate to remind everyone but folks who are in the military are people, too, and they are the same victims and perpetrators of violence as the rest of you, we have all been shallowly conditioned to view each other as enemies just because one person is wearing army greens and the other is not.

some of the biggest anti-war advocates are those who engaged in war. Veterans who genuinely believed they were protecting the US against "terrorism" come back with blood on their hands, and they choose to realize that it was US imperialism that forced them to carry out violence, instead of doubling down and shielding themselves from the fact that they too are capable of atrocities... This is a class of people who are intentionally conditioned to be as poor and as ideologically aligned to US imperialism so that the military has a never-ending pool to send their youth to destroy other country's youth. The only people I have ever heard say "do not join the military" are those who ARE military.

This is in no way to ever excuse or explain away any of the atrocious war crimes and violence this industry and its people have committed against others. What I am saying is that we absolutely cannot cast aside the individuals who have been victimized within US imperialism, even if they are wearing army greens. I was speaking with my Palestinian classmate last week and another classmate--a member of the US air force-- walked up to me and struck up a conversation. My military classmate showed me her new bird, bid both of us goodbye, and left. My Palestinian classmate asked me if I was close with her, and I said we talked quite often, and she said, "I never met a person who's in the military. I still hate the military, but I never knew that they did, too. I didn't realize that they were also victims."

If my Palestinian classmate--one who is actively watching her own community die--can understand that it is not individuals who are the problem but it is in fact systems, US imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism...why can't we all? And she has EVERY reason to hate any individual military member. A lot of online activism just creates more barriers. if your optics look bad, complicated, or contradictory, you are cast aside. Everyone has got the be the perfect activist, you can never make a mistake or share a half-baked thought, you should always believe every word from a marginalized persons mouth (because being marginalized doesn't mean you're not entrenched in white supremacy too!) and you should never question what you see...Do you know what you sound like? The very imperialists who are convincing poor whites to vote against themselves. Perfectionism is white supremacy. Black & white thinking is white supremacy.

I'd rather have a military member who genuinely believed in the US imperialism machine but was disillusioned after being deployed as my comrade than some leftist who cherishes the performance of "being a good person". I don't want "good people" in our movements. I want humans who care. I want humans who make mistakes and who learn from them. I want humans who accept the messiness of a person. I want humans who hold others accountable and allow themselves to take responsibility for their actions. I want people who change for themselves and others.

fight systems, not individual people. we can change each other, but if we're too preoccupied looking like the World's Perfect Activists, we will only consume each other alive. Connect to your fellow humans, forever and always.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Well they caught him. If he wasn't the exact kind of person tumblr loves, the conspiracy theories about this being a random person being framed would have continued to spread. But he's an attractive 26 year old white man who was caught carrying a manifesto about corporate America and has an internet history that matches up with tumblr's general politics. So everyone is going to get excited about how he's a martyr and go back to acknowledging reality in that there isn't a conspiracy to frame the wrong guy.

The discussions over whether or not this man should be lionized as a hero are honestly not as relevant as the comfort with which people are going to drop the conspiracy theory they would have been fully committed to if this man's politics turned out to be nuts. The ease with which the userbase of this website switches between realities based on whether or not they confirm their biases is really alarming. I just hope people understand how weird it is to claim a random person is 100% going to be framed by the FBI on one day, and then drop that by the next day when it becomes clear that the person being "framed" is the exact kind of communist you had hoped.

[nikkalick]

I have chronic back pain, have for a while. It’s not so bad now that I had surgery, but I lived with it for years. I tried to go to a doctor for it, but they just said to lose weight, so I learned to live with the pain until one morning I couldn’t get up from bed. Couldn’t move without feeling like electricity was running up and down my back, burning my spine and leg from the inside.

This had me back in front of a doctor who (thankfully) listened and then for an entire year my insurance jerked me around requiring that I try different methods to manage the pain before finally agreeing to cover surgery.

In that year leading up to surgery something inside me broke. I couldn’t do the most basic tasks. Having to learn how to move my body in just the right way so that I wouldn’t lock up trying to wipe my own ass is one of my least favorite memories. Next to it is a tie between falling at my sister’s wedding because my leg gave out and being in so much pain I couldn’t sleep for days on end. I couldn’t sit, couldn’t drive, couldn’t bend or twist or even lay down without feeling like my nerves were on fire.

Work accommodated but I felt useless. I couldn’t lift inventory anymore. Couldn’t do a key part of my job that I (oddly) enjoyed doing. Commuting the hour to school twice a week was excruciating, but it was my first year of grad school. I had to push through. My professors were kind, they accommodated so that I could be as comfortable as possible in class. But I felt like a distraction, a nuisance, a bother. It was so hard to focus on lectures and homework when 90% of the input my brain was receiving was that of pain.

I grit my teeth and bore it, my mental health hit a new all time low, and I broke down in front my my mother more times than I can count. And I did this for a year because insurance refused to cover surgery unless I proved to them I needed it. I had to jump through their hoops and play by their rules to get the procedure I needed and that my care team knew I needed. I lost feeling in my leg and foot because they made me wait.

I will forever be grateful for the doctors who listened, for the physical therapist who advocated for me, for my mom who surprisingly became my rock during the whole ordeal. But my insurance company? They can go fuck themselves.

My pain before that year was bad, but not excruciating. My pain now? It’s minimal. Sometimes I still lock up and I’ll likely never have all of the sensation return to my left foot, but I’ll take the constant pins and needles over that year of pain any day. That said, had it gone on much longer I genuinely don’t know if I’d be here typing this.

Anyways…I guess what I’m saying is IF he did it, I get it. I really really get it.

[muffingnf]

i literally just woke up so thisis like word vomit but. the rest of the world are watching america and we’re all just so fucking BAFFLEDDDDD and like. its almost frustrating as an outsider to see this most powerful, influential country be so reminiscent of a bygone era like the US is SO influential over the rest of us we cannot escape US news or anything and sometimes i just think like. why. why should the rest of us let a country with so much backwards thinking have so much impact on us ??? idk

[butchviking]

hi can we please separate the term "healthcare" from the term "transitional care"/"medical transition". like neither of those things should be legislated against but there IS an obvious difference between the idea of denying trans people healthcare and denying them medical transition. those things are in fact worlds apart

[hanzajesthanza]

we need some more of those geralt’s company journeying through the marshland “what-if”s: the alternate routes they had expected or planned for, but ultimately didn’t take.

like what if: milva decided to go through with the abortion, and had to wait it out in a village as she expected. natural abortifacients are pretty brutal, and what follows, too, so regis would have had to stay with her, potentially splitting the company? or would the rest of the company also set down their quest for weeks and stayed with her. and villages at this time were none-too-safe either, what with the nilfgaardian invasion…

or what if: they indeed went through ysgith as previously planned. would dandelion have gotten eaten by a man-eating orchid? would milva still have miscarried, but this time from being exposed to poison gas? how would have geralt’s animosity and distrust towards cahir played out when things hungering for human flesh are all around them and it would be really easy to push him into that swamp? how would the pain in geralt’s knee play out in this humid environment? would they get a free pass by some monsters, if regis looked back behind the company with a stern, disapproving expression?

or what if: they couldn’t all cross the jaruga like geralt expected, and according to his plan, he and regis had to be the only ones that crossed and ventured on, alone together to go see the druids (which were farther away than they planned)? what would have happened to milva, cahir, and dandelion, left behind? if they didn’t participate in the battle of the bridge, then the rivian troops would have fled, and so nilfgaard wouldn’t have been driven back from the jaruga—affecting trade routes as the war carried on?

or what if: they didn’t stop in riedbrune and were not warned of the attack, and went straight to belhaven, walking right into the planned ambush by nightingale? would angoulême have indeed shot geralt in the back with a crossbow? or would his witcher senses have allowed him to pre-empt the attack? what if they really got captured by nilfgaardian agents then?

what if they never stayed in beauclair, or left early as geralt had inclined. they would have all frozen to death in the mountain passes (or, well, all of them save for regis, who is invulnerable to freezing)

there were a lot of uncertainties along their journey.

[iero]

One of my worst qualities is being incredibly frugal with my money, but at the same time, every time I do spend money on myself (not counting basic needs), something terrible happens to me immediately or almost immediately after the money's already spent, so I feel I have good reason to be.

[hirazuki]

Hira's year in medical review:

Me, August 2023: *experiencing extreme fatigue, fainting spells, mood swings, sudden and drastic increase of suicidal thoughts, and intense hair loss*

P.A: let's do blood work

Me: ok!

Bloodwork: *normal except for prolactin*

Doctor: sometimes that's a fluke so let's retest

Me: ok

Bloodwork: *exactly the same*

Doctor: your values are higher than normal range, but not high enough to be in range for a pituitary gland tumor.

(P.A: go see an endocrinologist and get an MRI, that might be indicative of a pituitary gland tumor.) <- bless this person and only this person in particular

Endocrinologist, seen earliest available which was January 2024: *wants to retest blood work instead of ordering an MRI*

Me: ... ok

Bloodwork: *the same*

Me: can we please do an MRI now?

Endocrinologist: Well. Your values are above the normal limit, but it's highly unlikely that's it's a pituitary gland tumor because they are not high enough for that. Let's retest blood work in four months.

Me: ...................... ok

Bloodwork, May 2024: *THE SAME*

Endocrinologist: hmm, I recommend an MRI

Me: *gesturing angrily*

MRI, June 2024: 🎉 pituitary gland tumor 🎉

Doctor, when I went in for something else: I doubt your endocrinologist will want to treat that, we typically don't treat adenomas that small

Endocrinologist, who took 3 weeks to review my results: I recommend just monitoring. It's highly unlikely that this is causing your symptoms, it's too small for that.

Me, July 2024:

[scalpelsister]

what if i lost the will to live like. as a joke. what then.

[forgotten-daydreamer]

vent moment but my health is a bit worse than i let on, which is weird ik since it seems like complain about it all the time here, and apparently i also look sick, because two separate people in their 40s or 50s asked me, 24, if i needed their seat on the bus. kind of them. but humiliating nonetheless.

[sesamenom-misc]

brief survey

*common symptoms include:

physiological - lingering chest pain, shortness of breath, lingering cough, heart palpitations, abnormal heart rate

neurological - brain fog, general cognitive decline, fatigue, language/word retrieval issues, short term and long term memory issues, abnormal executive dysfunction, difficulty concentrating, exacerbation of pre-existing depression or anxiety

**if you first contracted covid before vaccines were available, you can count it as unvaccinated

[lovelyisadora]

I want some adhd meds for christmas. only some adhd meds will do

[byanyan]

me, a 30 y/o who has gradually grown more and more reclusive over the years, unable to hold a job for more than a month and unable to finish any schooling despite many attempts, who struggles immensely with social situations to the point of avoiding everything, has been misdiagnosed w/ bpd in the past, & been in treatment for depression & anxiety for nearly 2 decades atp: so i think i'm autistic

the psychiatrist i only got in to see after suffering a severe mental/emotional breakdown for the second time in my life: ok well most physicians don't do assessments for that anymore, you'd have to go private and pay around $5000 to find out

me: surprisedpikachu.jpg

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

Had an ADHD assessment a few years ago and the fuckwit that assessed me said, as a direct quote, "You're too smart to have ADHD." Like that's not any type of paraphrasing, that stupid fucking statement is burned in my brain forever and has been since I heard it.

I talked to my psychiatrist about getting a referral to a different psychologist for assessment, and she agreed and sent it in.

Today I got a call that said they don't agree that I need reassessment, and I'm welcome to pursue it elsewhere, but they won't provide reassessment. Which is just.

I don't even know where to start with that one. I just needed to get it out. I'm so tired.