Cupcake has graciously offered to drive me to San Francisco for the Gilead Sciences Conference. We’re taking Silvia’s jetguns (plural) to Foster City. I have been invited as fellow HCVet Randy Nesbitt’s guest. Finding air travel less than desirable in late summer and feeling the call of the road, we are off to break bread with fellow Vietnam Veteran and good friend Brad Golding. After, we will see my oldest cousin Denise in Sacramento and then on to another good friend and Vietnam Veteran in Salinas for a joyous celebration of not being on the Vietnam Wall.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will be devoted to praising and singing the virtues of Gilead Sciences. Some may feel disgruntled that the treatment costs seem high. Remember the first hand-held calculator from Texas Instruments for $1150? Everyone said that about Ross Perot, too. This isn’t Gilead’s fault. Blame Pharmasett who wanted a cool $11 Billion for the NS5A cookie recipe. Gilead simply made the winning bid. What the hey? All that negative animosity could have just as easily fallen on Bristol Meyers or Sandoz Labs. They cured me after 44 years and not a moment too soon. The cirrhotic swan dive into an ammonia-soaked brain is no fun for you or your family. It makes Alzheimer’s look like a spectator sport. For granting me life, I will sing all four verses of The Hokey Pokey at high noon at the intersection of their choosing. If I never get Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) I will even do free commercials. It’s akin to beating terminal cancer five minutes before the priest arrives to administer Extreme Unction.
6th Life of 9 -March 2010
Getting a pass on inevitable early death is very exhilarating. They had my bingo date as early as 2018. It makes you feel like the cat’s pajamas with nine lives. After what happened to me in 2009-2010 at the Seattle VAMC, the analogy is even more appropriate. I think I’ve used up about eight now and am coming to believe I am not so bulletproof as I would like to be.
The teaching moment is obvious. Those folks at Gilead Sciences deserve to see what caused their windfall bonanza. Trust the lazy Government to cut corners and try to save money on disposable syringes. Idiot’s delight. It has now come around in spades and bit them upon their buttocks. The more power to Gilead. Win or Die, right?
Road Trips! Love them.
Four Gilead successes-Win or Die.
Again, Thank you Gilead Sciences for commuting my death sentence to time served.
asknod
brewerkelli
cspencer02
jamesaurora
kcraveiro
Laura
Veterans Claims Help 
For Pete’s sake Alex, Gilead has been proven to report only a selected subset of their clinical trial data, has presided over 1.5 million people dying while only 613,000 have been given treatment, has paid their CEO $600 million since 2009 (far more than Sofosbuvir’s entire development cost
of $375 m) and held the release of a medication for HIV that had less side effects so they could get rid pf the inventory they had even though what they had had more side effects. So this doesn’t suggest a strong, or indeed any, moral compass exists within the company.
They didn’t “save you”. They turned you into a cardiac patient! Tell them one of your guest speakers is writing a paper on Sof being cardio toxic and to watch for it or ask them about using Form 1 on clinical trials but Form 2 later. That should get you some immediate attention.
Professor Rouabhia from Batna University has invited me to be coauthor on a paper he’s writing on sof being cardio toxic. One of the things I’ve always wanted to do.
Have a great trip. I’d join you but lies make me break out in hives (you know what I mean. So don’t take pictures!
S.
I make no bones about it, Silvia. I owe them my life. I have autoimmune issues and Interferon damn near killed me on the first shot. I waited for seven years for a cure and the time was not on my side. If I gain ten and die, that’s ten more years I never would have had. I never thought I’d make it out of Southeast Asia alive so this is all bonus time now. People can hurl insults at Dr. Shinazi and his Pharmasett crew as well as Gilead but I will not follow suit. As to whether Sof or Ledipasvir are not cardio friendly, we shall see. My current CHF is due entirely to the hemotologist who felt ferritin doesn’t play a very important part in blood chemistry. Too many phlebotomies makes Alex a very sick puppy. That is what is wrong with my heart-not an overdose of Sovaldi.
Drive Safe, Brother!
And a shout-out to Silvia for taking her hard-earned $$$ and buying those dirty jet injectors, or guns, whichever term you prefer.
Thank you Kiedove. After trying to help Vets for years I looked around and asked myself, What have I done for them? and saw it wasn’t much. The VA makes it impossible to do anything. I wanted to do one big thing for them. Something I could look back to and say, I did THAT one thing for them. I have a background in research so I used the one thing I’m good at to continue gathering the evidence on jetguns HCVets had been gathering for years. The jetguns were part of it but Alex is the one that took the jetguns places.
I accomplished what I set out to do so that pretty much concludes my involvement at HCVets. I’m retiring from advocacy and go back to my own world.. I’ve been gone a long time. But first I’m going to do a couple of things to ensure that all the info I found is used to help Veterans and not help the greedy ones make money off of Veterans.
So stay tuned….more to come.
S.
Sending you something important.
Chase owes them a big shout out as well. All gone here. New liver still ticking over well. Have a great trip!