Battling Healthcare

My friend Angela is in the middle of a debacle that probably should surprise no one, but is just as difficult and frustrating all the same.

Several years ago she had surgery. Not long afterwards, she had new symptoms that made her surgeon take pause… eventually it was discovered that the cause of the problem was a mesh fabric used as a part of the surgery. It wasn’t left there by mistake; it was part of the surgery. It was supposed to be there. It was manufactured to be left in someone’s body. It was new to the market, and there’s where part of the problem is. It’s called Mentor’s OB Tape.

Follow up surgery has not rectified the problem. The most recent theory is that the mesh has migrated to other areas of Angela’s body. She is left with problems and pain. The next step is probably another surgery — seek and remove — find those other pieces of mesh in other places, dig them out, replace them, sew them into place. Bloody, messy, ugly, horrible.

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We used to see the ads on TV. Your cholesterol goes out of whack because of two things: cholesterol from the food you eat, and genetic cholesterol problems. So, being the good and wise patient you were, you discussed the subject with your doctor and he or she suggested Vytorin. Why? Because it was said to battle both types of cholesterol. And that can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Turns out that those clever marketers at both Shering Plough and Merck — the manufacturers of the components of Vytorin — had us all fooled. Billions of dollars later (yes — I mean billions!) they announced that — oops! Vytorin not only doesn’t work to reduce cholesterol and protect us from heart attacks and strokes, but it might even cause us additional cholesterol problems, worse than we had before we took the drug!

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