We need to make sure that access to a curative drug doesn't become a yardstick by which poverty is eventually measured. Doing so requires a shared commitment between innovators and the insurance plans that are harder pressed to offer these advances to the poor.
Interpretation
Access to essential medicines should not be determined by wealth, highlighting the need for both innovation and equitable insurance coverage.
In this quote, Scott Gottlieb emphasizes the importance of ensuring that access to life-saving medications is not dictated by one's financial status. He warns against treating the availability of curative drugs as a measure of poverty and advocates for collaboration between innovators in the pharmaceutical industry and insurance providers to ensure that these vital advancements reach those who are economically disadvantaged.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about healthcare policy at a community meeting.
Science offers the chance to cure debilitating and once-intractable disorders like hemophilia and sickle cell disease. But we need to make sure the ability to access these therapies, or the risk that someone can be locked out of them, doesn't widen gaps between the rich and poor.
It is true that some off-label drug use is based on very unsettled science and has more risks. But medicine - and not just cancer care - involves lots of hard choices. And the more serious the disorder, often the more likely it is that for every right and wrong treatment choice there are many other practical decisions painted in shades of gray.
In fast moving fields like cancer, where doctors tailor treatments based on evidence that's constantly evolving, two years can be an eternity of waiting to learn about important science. For some patients, that interval can be fatal.
A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.
The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.
No one can doubt that there are times when an abortion is justifiable but they will become unnecessary when care is taken to prevent conception. This is the only cure for abortions.
Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
If you take care of your body, it'll take care of you.
That is the one single word that the food industry hates: 'addiction.' They much prefer words like 'crave-ability' and 'allure.'
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