TOPIC:

Giliead has an all out media blitz going on in the US right now to promote its new pan-genotype HCV treatment. Published list price is US $74,760 for 12 weeks. Now is the perfect time to get the message out that affordable treatment is available.

Just posted to Yahoo News Comments:

"Gilead paid 11 billion for Sofosbuvir, and to date has made well over 26 billion soaking your insurance company and mine $94,0000 per 12 week course of treatment for a drug that costs just $100 per 12 week course of treatment to make. In India, and Bangladesh they pay $850 per 12 weeks course of treatment for the exact same generic Gilead licensed medication. Don't believe me? Do a search for yourself. In order for the Gilead scheme to work in the first world, the rate of infection must remain much higher that the rate of cure. Pricing the medication in the first world at more than 11,000 percent higher than it sells in the third world guarantees the rate of infection remains high, and the mind numbing amount revenue just keeps rolling in, at the expense of your health and mine."

Time to use the media stories they are funding worldwide to get out the message about affordable generic DAA treatment. Not to hurt Gilead or anyone else, but to help the millions without hope in the US and around the world!

Please don't bother responding to this post. Use that energy to get the word out. Google is your friend. Find the articles being rolled out around the world and especially in the so called 'first world' and start posting, posting. posting.

Please! This is a fantastic opportunity!

www.google.com/#q=Gilead&tbm=nws

ac·tiv·ism
ˈaktəˌvizəm/
noun
noun: activism

the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change.

a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.

GAJ has aksed me to be kinder. I will do so here, have modified this post accordingly, and have removed the link to the Yahoo News article.

Out there... here, in the US people are dying from this disease at the rate of 54 a day, and sadly they have no idea that options even exist. I didn't. Out there, I am not being nice. I am simply telling the truth, because those with a financial interest in suppressing and smothering truth are out there lying to dying Americans, telling them to wait, to be patient, that their patience will be rewarded..... "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche"

Admittedly - I do not feel kindly toward these servants of greed.

I don't feel like being nice either fitz. The Veterans Administration just released their new treatment guidelines and they include...

genotype 1 cirrhotic.....ledipasvir/sofosbuvir + ribavirin (600 mg/day and increase by 200 mg/day every 2 weeks only as tolerated) x 12 weeks.

Genotype 3 naive ...ledipasvir/sofosbuvir + ribavirin x 12 weeks
Treatment experienced, non cirrhotic....ledipasvir/sofosbuvir + ribavirin x 12 weeks
For cirrhotics....Daclatasvir + sofosbuvir + ribavirin x 12 weeks

Bastards

Gilead invited us to do a presentation on jet guns at their conference. How about I include something about generics?

Hi Price & Fitz,

Reading your posts made me think that in overall it is a matter of legitimacy vs legality.
From the perspective of HCV patients, the prices from Gilead are illegitim (not alligned with human values or health principles) because only few people can access the medication. From the perspective of investors.... It is another story. But if the high prices have been legally established, that's another question, to which is not so easy to answer. What I am convinced however, is that Gilead knows its issue with the "not legitimate" prices and is making efforts to make the public believe that practicing high prices is justified and legitimate. That might explain why so much advertising in US.
The news that Gilead is a kind of "evil pricer" is spreading already and will continue to spread. But it is not only Gilead the "evil pricer", rather also the other companies who have the power to erradicate Hep C with their drugs , but continue to maintain high prices.

Perhaphs they have the legal means to establish whatever price they want, but we also have the legitimacy to advocate, keeping an eye open to the legal aspects, about the cheaper and effective generic HCV drugs.

Cheers,
RHF

Hi Fitz
Sorry for the reply but I share your anger and sadness. My daughter is a 4th year med student in the US and doing hospital rounds in the infectious disease wards. She shared my buyers club story with the attending physician she works under and the doctor had never heard of the alternatives meds that are available, never mind the patients. Frustrating. I had a very good friend pass away just a few months ago from HVC. At the time I had yet to be diagnosed so was not aware of the club. The word will/is getting out there. At the beginning of my diagnosis I was only sharing with people that needed to know. Now I tell my story to everyone I meet.
BTW I loved your redemtion trials thread, having just taken my first pill the day before. Cheers brother, get well.

cheese wrote: BTW I loved your redemption trials thread, having just taken my first pill the day before. Cheers brother, get well.

Hey cheese, you've just started treatment

That's awesome, safe travels and see you on the other side

GAJ has aksed me to be kinder

No, I didn't. I sent you a pm suggesting that you target the problem rather than patients who sing the praises of insurance companies and greedy pharmacuetical companies.

In the same way, VA are not really the problem. They are working with a government provided budget of X dollars to fund treatment for Y patients and are doing so with courses of medication that while not perfect are an unachievable dream for many in the US and the rest of the world.

In my view greedy pharmacuetical companies unfairly exploiting patent laws and how the governments and insurance companies interact with them are the problem.

My request is that we all use our anger constructively to work for changes in those areas and part of that process can and should be to apply pressure on the 'system' by advocating, educating and informing everyone about generic medications and how their pricing exposes the extortion being practiced by the pharma companies.

Yep, The US laws and the people that make them are the problem. Gilead is a publicly traded company and can charge whatever it wants. If Congress passed a "price-gouging" law (LMAO....pass a law!...), people would be howling about big government and socialized medicine...... I'm sure Gilead's board of directors had their marketing division analyze exactly how much they could charge before reaching the point of diminishing returns. They really don't give a rat's ass about 53.5 dead Americans daily and Congress can't get any campaign funding trying to help a bunch of people who got themselves infected being social deviants....Our medicinal patent system needs an overhaul, maybe like copyrights in the music business: someone used your song in a movie, you get royalties. If it becomes a blockbuster, you get a lot more royalties.
Educating people about the availabilty of quality generics is the card that will call Gilead's bluff. I went public two years ago in the statewide newspaper about insurance coverage denials for outrageously priced HCV medications. I told everyone at work in the "at risk" age group about the CDC's testing recommendations.
Now, I'm telling whoever will listen about several really good options people have in the US to legally access perfect generic copies of these highly effective DAAs that are affordable. Hell, I would put a sign in my front yard saying "$900 Generic Harvoni Cured Me of Hep C!" if it would do any good and I'm not a sign or bumper sticker person....
So, start an informational website, ask the "good doctors", those who monitored your generic tx, to tell others. Write a million letters to those turds in Washington and tell them to start doing something besides arguing and kissing rich asses.
Most people in the US just won't take medicine imported from Asia without a doctor telling them its safe. Some, like me and many others here, simply couldn't tolerate being sick anymore-physically and/or emotionally-and decided to do something about it. If the Indians hadn't delayed the availability of ledipasvir, I would have gone to India. One way or another, this crap was going to be gone. But generics and importation came along and is still here.
Gilead and the Government.
Now that's a pair to draw to.....
We are an underground movement with a maligned, misunderstood disease promoting a gray market......
Let's be about it, people!
Open some eyes!
m

Gaj wrote:

GAJ has aksed me to be kinder

No, I didn't. I sent you a pm suggesting that you target the problem rather than patients who sing the praises of insurance companies and greedy pharmacuetical companies.

Gaj - respectfully, the particular 'patient' who was deliberately posting misinformation in response to my posts was flat out lying about the availability and affordability of branded medications. Those carefully crafted untruths needed to be exposed and corrected, and I did so, telling some of my own story along the way. The article on the news outlet upon which I was posting comments and rebuttal will be read by tens of thousands, if not hundred of thousands of Americans.

The individual who attempted to rebut my posts was lying through her teeth to dying Americans, and to each and every one of the thousands people who are reading those comments every day.

The way the author wove that web of lies and half-truths was really something to behold, unless one recognized it for what it really was - artfully crafted disinformation and propaganda. When the author Identified herself at the end of her first post as a shareholder who directly benefits from, and liked the predatory pricing scheme, her motive was crystal clear, and the gloves came off.

FixHepC.com is about outreach, and information, and healing, and providing a path to lifesaving treatment, hope and support to people (like me) who otherwise have run out of good options.

This is a resource unique in the entire world, and I will not drag the battle in here again. However, out there I will continue to stand toe to toe with, and confront deliberate dishonesty and subterfuge, where it is being artfully deployed to keep people ignorant and at deaths door.

You are an exceptionally good human being Gaj. And, your innate compassion, sense of good sportsmanship, and fair play makes you an exceptional moderator and counselor, which is much appreciated.

I am a bit of a street fighter, and will strive to leave that at the curb when I come here.

fitz wrote: I am a bit of a street fighter, and will strive to leave that at the curb when I come here.

I really like you

Gaj wrote: In the same way, VA are not really the problem. They are working with a government provided budget of X dollars to fund treatment for Y patients and are doing so with courses of medication that while not perfect are an unachievable dream for many in the US and the rest of the world.

One of their options is Sof + Peg + Riba. Any options that include Ribavirin the dose is 600mg and increase by 200mg every 2 weeks. It's not a dream, it's a nightmare.

They asked Congress for less money for treatment this year.

I like you too, Price. And, I like your work. Your activism on behalf of American veterans is sincerely appreciated. I did not serve. My parents were both military officers (before mom retired without a military pension to raise a family).

Our veterans have sacrificed greatly, and deserve a lot better care than they're getting. Although things are improving here and there, like just about everything else our federal government does, the VA is royally and famously f'ing up almost everything they touch. Veterans are still dying waiting for treatment, or even an appointment to be seen. It is tragic and criminal.

BTW, Ive seen your posts in the comments section of the press releases Big Phama and their media lap dogs are peddling as 'news'. You are quite a scrapper yourself. Way to get the word out!

Long read of the VA hardcopy! The US VA recommendations was 104 pages to read!!
Testing, screening, many tx options listed etc.
Riba is on the lists yes, and the table clearly shows some cohorts are recommended to take riba and yes increase the dose see inserted tables.
I always research citations because I like to lobby seeings as the illness affects so many countries.
I hope that all people who are HCV infected everywhere no matter how can access testing treatment and support

This is the US VA pdf I have now read which includes the information that has been summarised by the other member.
I'm including a screenshot or two of tx protocols as mentioned in the thread earlier. Ariel

www.hepatitis.va.gov/pdf/treatment-consi...tions-2016-03-28.pdf

Friends images seem to be loading poorly from my end for a few days this might not have loaded clearly the screenshots are simply part of the tx table
Regards
Ariel