25th December 2015
 
One of the best things I received this Christmas is a steady flow of emails from people who have started their treatments and received their first blood test results or have finished their treatments and received the news that they are virus free.
It is a great gift for me and a great gift for them. Next year should see thousands of Australians be able to access the new Hepatitis treatments for free on the national PBS. This is a great gift for all those people with Hep C in Australia but there are still more than 20 million people with Hep C who can not access affordable Hep C treatment through generics or any other way.
 
Interestingly enough the two countries I get the most inquiries from are the USA and Romania.
The weirdest thing is that it is easier for Romanians to get these meds than citizens of the USA even though the average income in Romania is about 20% of the average income in the USA.
Even though the USA is supposedly the land of the free with a constitution to guarantee its citizens the unalienable right of the pursuit of happiness, the FDA actively prevents people from accessing the basic human right of Health by stopping people accessing life saving medicines.
 
So I am helping heaps of people from Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Lithuania and so on to access the Indian generic Hep C treatments but almost no-one from the USA.
 
Anyway enough of that.
 
Its Christmas Day. My family and friend came around and we all ate way too much and now we are having a very warm Christmas afternoon laying around trying to digest turkey and pudding and so many other delicious things.
 
Here an interesting email I received yesterday, I call it High Anxiety because so many people suffer from this anxiety as they wait for their medication to arrive:
 
Hi Greg
I received my package today. After I ordered it I suffered tremendous anxiety waiting for it to arrive. I imagined all sorts of scenarios which would prevent the cure from arriving. Customs agents were being paid off by Gilead to seize shipments of sofosbuvir and daclatasvir; the plane carrying the shipment would crash into the ocean and I would not be able to get another shipment; a FedEx employee has a relative with HCV who was denied treatment so he stole my shipment; the truck carrying the shipment crashed and was looted by a frenzied mob and I couldn’t get more etc., etc..... I got no sleep. I was tracking the shipment every five minutes. I was terrified that something would happen that would crush my chances to be free of my disease.
 
When the package finally arrived I opened it. Inside were the two medicines I needed so much.
I looked at them. I was amazed. I pondered the fact that the contents of  this small parcel are worth a hundred thousand dollars in this country. Worth more than gold or platinum. Worth more than heroin or cocaine. Priceless to me because I was holding my life in my hand.
 
We universally denounce those individuals who import and sell illicit drugs, such as heroin, on the street. We call them pushers. We imprison them and justify doing so by rationalizing that they are preying on peoples sickness. They are selling drugs that, when withheld, cause the people who need them to suffer excruciating physical pain and mental agony.  Pushers don’t care whether the people who need their drugs cannot afford to pay the grossly inflated prices they charge for them. All that a pusher cares about is him/herself and obscene profit. Pushers don’t care whether their customers die for lack of their drugs.  If one thinks about this logically, one might conclude that Gilead’s board of directors are simply a bunch of pushers and should therefore be imprisoned. They certainly do not care what happens to people who can not afford to buy their drugs.
 
Thank you Greg. Without your blog I never would have known about the treatment option that I chose to pursue.  I will begin treatment under a doctor’s supervision.  I will let you know the results and I will spread the word to others.
 
God bless you mate
David
 
P.S. Feel free to use this email in any way you see fit. I know my last one was too angry to publish. This one is better because I am really, really happy today.
 
And another:
 
Hi Greg,
            I don’t know if you remember me but I am another you helped access Sof/ Riba from India. I just wanted to let you know I got my 4 week UNDETECTED result today!!! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart xxxxx. I am eternally grateful for your help.
I ended up on SOF/DAC  on your recommendation after seeing Doc Freeman.I will need to find out whether I still need to take the Riba (last 12 weeks) from him as that had not been decided. I still have a long way to go as I need 24 weeks treatment but this has taken such a load off me. I actually have energy!
I hope you are enjoying life and your health continues to improve. I know mine already has!!!
Kind Regards
###########
 
p.s sorry about all the exclamation marks but I’m excited