Well, in terms of people currently on this site, I think it will be a cold day in hell before any of us feel other than utter and complete loathing for Gilead.
I can tell you that in none of the Australian media I’ve seen has Gilead even been mentioned let alone held up as benevolent Big Pharma. I really can’t see that playing well in this country. It’s all been about whether the government should be given credit or if it’s just political spin. Personally, at the end of the day I don’t really care. “Heaven” to use the doc’s analogy would have been to tell Gilead to take a jump we’re going with generics for everybody. But that was never going to happen. It’s not like the hep c drugs are the only patents they own. They’re too powerful and we’re too small. Your government is the only one who could fight that battle and have any chance of winning.
What did people want our government to do?
I think we have to look at this as an opportunity. As I said previously, this changes the zeitgeist. We can use this to change it more widely. People need to start saying to their governments “Hey why aren’t you offering treatment to everybody like them! Why have you agreed to the outrageous demands of these drug companies!” What’s more, because the deal covers all the drugs it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Maybe not as much a bed of roses for Gilead as you might think. Should we spend health dollars on genotype testing when we could just skip it and use Dac?
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This appears to be a bit sweeter than lemons. More like oranges.
Let’s make orange juice.
