Breast Cancer For Husbands.com

Cancer Drugs - What's Old Is New, And More Expensive

While talking with an oncologist I was asking about the new drug Reclast being offered to help with bone loss patients. It's being promoted as a once a year treatment alternative to other drugs that are administered monthly or even more frequently. The one I'm familiar with is Zometa, commonly using with cancer that's moved into the bones. He laughed and said he interfaces with Medicare about treatment options and they are not paying for Reclast. The reason? Reclast and Zometa (and Aclasta, btw) are exactly the same drug, Zoledronic acid, just repackaged under a different brand and prescribed once a year for osteoporosis. Oh... and the price for Reclast is much higher too.

So what do you get for the more expensive version of the same drug? Different branding, packaging, different web sites, additional studies, FDA approvals, miles of paperwork, and lots of TV commercials and magazine ads touting a new drug... all so osteoporosis patients can get the exact same drug, less frequently, at a higher price.

It shows you just how utterly ridiculous and out of control our health care and drug company systems are. And we wonder why our health care costs and health insurance premiums are skyrocketing out of site.

American Airlines & Susan G. Komen Partner For Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research

American Airlines is plastering eight of their airplanes with Susan G. Komen logos and pink ribbons. It's part of an announced effort to raise $7.5m over the next eight year for inflammatory breast cancer research at M.D. Anderson.

Kudos to American Airlines. I wish they had more flights in and out of Denver. I'd do more travel business with them.

United Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Southwest? I don't know if you are sponsoring any breast cancer fund raising but it would sure be appreciated, and noticed by your customers, if you did.

Don't Be An Edwards Dumbass, Support Your Wife

Well... with this blog post I'm venturing into some strong opinion territory so consider this fair warning. I might offend you but this is how I feel about the matter.

I don't care what political persuasion you come from, but any guy who has an affair on his wife who's battling breast cancer is a complete dumbass in my book. Let me understand the thought process John Edwards must have gone through... "Hmm, my wife is in the fight of her life battling breast cancer, so it's probably okay if I cheat on her with this woman over here. After all, I'm a candidate for President. No one will catch me." Somehow I don't believe Edwards even thought that hard about it. [And clearly, I'm being sarcastic here.]

Wow, some guys are so incredibly stupid that they have to go and remove all doubt. I guess we're all fortunate that someone with Edwards' incredibly poor judgement didn't receive his political party's nomination. I just feel deeply sorry for Elizabeth Edwards who has shown great courage battling stage 4 breast cancer. Here's a woman that's in a fight for her life and had to watch her husband lie publicly about his infidelity.

Obviously, you can tell my disdain for someone who would make this poor a decision and show such a lack of integrity and love for his wife. I can't imagine too many scenarios, i.e. zero, where anyone would view the decision Edwards made in a good light. The reaction to Edwards' affair has been strongly negative across the board.

So, if there are any husbands out there thinking an affair while your wife has breast cancer is a good idea, clearly it isn't. It's an incredibly selfish and hurtful thing to do, and you'll certainly come out on the bad end of the result, so please, please, I plead with you to turn your focus back to loving your wife, supporting her no matter how difficult what you're going though is. Use Edward's bad judgement as an example and go back to supporting your wife.

$1 billion of luck for a breast cancer cure

Mike Dewey is offering a $1 billion reward to anyone who discovers the cure for breast cancer. Mike's more than a husband dealing with breast cancer, he's also a father who's two girls will also have breast cancer if they follow patterns in the family. Even though Mike doesn't haven $1 billion of his own dough, he's raising it through a nonprofit foundation he's established.

As a husband, I just want to do something to "fix" the cancer and make it go away. As much as I want to be a good problem solver husband, breast cancer is one thing guys can't just go out and fix.

The article I linked to above has some comments from the medical industry saying Mike's not going about it the right way. It's more about luck than a reward.

"I think sometimes there is a belief that if we have the right incentive, anything can be solved," [Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia] said. "This isn't a problem of incentive. It's having the right luck, the right breakthrough, the right science to get the problem solved."

I kind of know what they're talking about -- you can't make the discovery of a cure happen faster just by offering somebody a lot of money, err... maybe. You never know what an incentive like Mike Dewey's might do. It could just inspire someone to pursue a path or take a chance they might not have otherwise pursued. That one thing could lead to another, then another, and another... and then... some luck. An advancement or even a discovery might come of it.

Who was it that said you make your own luck? Maybe that's what Mike's got in mind.

Kudos, Mike.

If you'd like to find out more or support Mike's foundation and the $1 billion Victory Project, his site is http://www.deweyfoundation.org.