Why Big Pharma is a Disaster for Crohnies

It starts with trauma.

Your body is tearing itself apart. You are in extreme pain. You have never been this sick in your life. You can’t think straight, you’re fatigued, the sight of food repulses you, you are violently ill. Under these conditions, you will make the most important decisions of your life: decisions that might bankrupt you, or bring you to the brink of death.

That’s how Crohn’s disease leads its victims to the seemingly best solution: hospital stays, medical care, and Big Pharma. When you’ve suddenly lost 10% of your body weight, its hard to say no to a doctor’s advice.

“We’re going to start you on the most aggressive treatment: steroids followed with a biologic infusion. Eventually we may need to add in immunosuppressant drugs, or switch you to several different biologics if they first one fails.”

Sure thing, doctor, you’re the specialist with the advanced degree. I’d just like my asshole to stop pissing out blood.

In the hours that you are laying awake, filled with rage and steroids, you will have plenty of time to call your insurance company and arrange the prior authorization necessary to cover the cost of your new best friend, Remicade. Remicade will be delivered intravenously to you at 2, 4, and 8 weeks in an infusion suite at the hospital. The drug itself costs $30,000 a treatment, in addition to the hospital fees. Of course, there’s also the stigma and the gripping fear of taking chemotherapy drugs with the potential for terrible side effects, like: lymphoma and colon cancer.

Maybe you’ll have time between naps, crippling pain, and slowly drinking flavorless broth to contact the makers of Remicade and ask the company to give you the drug for free, a program they set up because they know it would be unethical to market a life saving medication that no one can afford.

Now that your full time job is managing your disease, and your part time job is researching how to get access to treatment for your disease, and your third shift job is worrying about the future and how you’ll pay for everything, and also roid rage, you can rest easy that the bureaucrats and executives at Big Pharma Inc and Big Insurance Co have your best interests in mind.

They are definitely not emboldened by the Trump administration to suck every last dollar out of your lifeless body, following a profit motive to extort sick and dying people, and then refusing to allow anyone coverage for mental health treatment. That we need. Because their bullshit is making us crazy.