Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Cost of Cancer Kills Before Cancer Does

Today Feb, 4th is World Cancer Day; couple of articles on how cancer financially ruins families.

A Cancer Patient Stole Groceries Worth $109.63. She Was Sentenced to 10 Months:

The lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, said the punishment was overly harsh and offered to personally repay the grocery store.

The Financial Toxicity of Illness:

The links between cancer regimens or outcomes and economic ruin do not constrict only the elderly. Young adults with cancer have two to five times higher rates of bankruptcy than seniors, many of whom can depend on Medicare and Social Security. Most of the parents of kids with cancer experience work disruptions because of the need to accompany their children to lengthy treatments; about 15 percent quit their jobs or are laid off. Pediatric patients who live in poverty tend to relapse more often than well-off kids: housing instability, poor nutrition and unavailable transportation take a toll.

A cluster of insured patients suffers the acute or sub-chronic monetary injuries of cancer treatments because of the astronomical price of new protocols. The first CAR T-Cell immunotherapy drug was priced at about $475,000 for a one-time treatment. Enasidenib for acute myeloid leukemia costs about $25,000 a month. 


This is the reality of how we treat humans in the most powerful country in the world. Now, one can imagine what happens to dogs and other animals. Yes, they kill them. These people enjoy their puppy-hood, adulthood and use them for their "joy" but when the times comes to take care of them in their old age, they use euphemisms to justify their killing.

Of-course there are lot of outliers. I am grateful that I was able to treat Max during his worst times but not many families aren't that fortunate.

Max's oncologist Dr. Ann K Jeglum was awarded the veterinarian of the country in 2015; she gave one thing no one has ever able to give me - more time with Max. I am forever grateful to her and her team (Lisa, Kathy, Kim and others) who loved Max and helped him ease his pain.

There are a lot of outlier families who can use financial help for the treatment of their dogs and cats. 

If you can afford it, please donate to:

Write check to VCORF (Veterinary Comparative Oncology Research Foundation)
Mailing Address:
VCORF
739 E. Nields Street
West Chester, PA 19382

Their website is https://www.vosrc.net/

You can add a note:  "In the memory of Max Sundaresan" and/or "To Give Beauty More Chance".

Please understand this donation is not only to help families who cannot afford cancer treatment for their loved ones but also would help fund cancer research which would benefit "humans" as well.
Dr. Jeglum holds a patent for Melanoma Vaccine.

If anyone is wondering - everything and whatever little I have, will be donated to VCORF fund when I am gone.

Thank you for your help.

Your donations will reflect on that "unselfish impulses" of humanity and would make Reinhold Niebhur smile.
  
The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.

Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.

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