151–160 of 199 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I follow. It's not like a therapy with a sticker price of $3.8 million is more available in countries without nationalized healthcare.
Sure it is. Look at the Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for Michigan. It covers a number of gene therapies at a cost of $2.2M for one of them. Not all European countries pay for it. https://www.bcbsm.com/amslibs/content/dam/public/employers/d...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atidarsagene_autotemcel > The National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE) in Ireland recommends "that atidarsagene autotemcel not be considered for reimbursement unless cost effectiveness can be improved relative to existing treatment." Wow… instead of a lifesaving cure they recommend the treatment of the symptoms until the kid dies because it’s cheaper .
We are truly living in a very interesting time. AI is already "smarter" than a big chunk of the population, Musk's company is expected to land human onto the mars soon, gene therapy is able to cure rare diseases that was unthinkable just a few decades ago, a certain type of colon cancer was 100% cured in a trial. Just shockingly amazing!
Yup! We're still fucked with climate change though. That one isn't fixable.
Geoengineering can stop global warming if necessary, but bringing back a destroyed ecosystem is effectively impossible.
We are truly living in a very interesting time. AI is already "smarter" than a big chunk of the population, Musk's company is expected to land human onto the mars soon, gene therapy is able to cure rare diseases that was unthinkable just a few decades ago, a certain type of colon cancer was 100% cured in a trial. Just shockingly amazing!
> Musk's company is expected to land human onto the mars soon I wouldn't make any bets based on Musk's posturing about Mars.
In general if Elon says it'll be done in two years time you can be confident it will take at least 3 years. Average of 4, but possibly more than 10
> Teddi and her sister Nala, age 3, were both diagnosed with MLD in April 2022, according to the NHS. Unfortunately, Nala was not eligible for Libmeldy because she'd already developed symptoms of the disorder. Holy shit. My god, I'm just thinking of the parents. "Sorry, we can only save one of your kids." "You can't give Nala the treatment?" "Well, we could . We won't, though." I'm sure there are good reasons, but Je…
In the case of the child who already shows neurological symptoms, the treatment can help stop the progression of the disease, but most likely not reverse the already existing damage. However, there are already treatments approved to help stop the progression of the disease, including enzyme replacement therapy (provide the enzyme in charge of degrading the sustrate through the bloodstream every so often).
Some would argue that if treatments with similar outcomes already exist and are approved, it could be unethical to test this experimental treatment on a patient (I disagree).
How exactly do you edit a gene? Like, it is very, very small thing. How do you even measure it, let alone replace it?
Biochemistry is wild! Measuring is an absolutely fascinating procedure. The predominant method is called sequencing by synthesis. Illumina is the company that basically rules the market for this technology, they have some decent explanatory videos if you’re interested. The first steps are to isolate DNA, then break it into small bits, replicate those small pieces thousands of times, and then anchor these to a glass s…
This is the kind of content I visit this site for.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no free lunch but money is not a constraint. Physical resources are a hard constraint. Labour is a hard constraint. Money is not. Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply. It’s no more (or less) complicated than any of the thousands of other fiscal decisions a government makes every year. There’s a fall…
The real constraint is indeed what that money buys, e.g the aforementioned person hours. And if you print money and inflate then the price of goods rises. So sure, you might only pay a bit more for the treatment but now fruits are more expensive and your population gets slightly more unhealthy.
>> >> Inflation caused by excess money supply (NB: not inflation caused by excess money velocity) cannot survive taxation. Taxation destroys money supply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe they have these things called planes, it's like a tube you enter and sit for a few hours and once exit you are in a driving distance to American hospitals where you can pay and receive the same treatment as everyone else without nationalised healthcare. Best of the both worlds.
What's more, Europe also has these private hospitals which aren't connected to the national healthcare system and which will provide you with top level care if you are willing to pay, no travel to US necessary. Private health insurance ( gasp! ) is also a thing, should you want to partake in that system.
you can't just simply state that he's healthy without actually seeing his lifespan
> Roughly six months out from treatment, "Teddi is a happy and healthy toddler showing no signs of the devastating disease she was born with," the NHS statement reads.
and later
> In clinical trials, Libmeldy offered clear benefits to infantile and juvenile patients who hadn't yet developed MLD symptoms; these patients were able to break down sulfatides at normal rates and showed typical patterns of motor development, for example. The benefit of the therapy seemed to last several years, but at this point, "it is not yet clear whether it will persist life-long, and extended follow-up is needed," the EMA noted.
Which is much more nuanced.
> Teddi and her sister Nala, age 3, were both diagnosed with MLD in April 2022, according to the NHS. Unfortunately, Nala was not eligible for Libmeldy because she'd already developed symptoms of the disorder. Holy shit. My god, I'm just thinking of the parents. "Sorry, we can only save one of your kids." "You can't give Nala the treatment?" "Well, we could . We won't, though." I'm sure there are good reasons, but Je…
> In clinical trials, Libmeldy offered clear benefits to infantile and juvenile patients who hadn't yet developed MLD symptoms Does that mean clincal trials didn't show a benefit for patients who had already developed symptoms? Does it mean it wasn't studied in patients who had already developed symptoms? I don't think it's unreasonable that the NHS won't spend large amounts of other people's money on a treatment tha…
It likely wasn't studied.
It's a pretty new treatment, so the vendors start with clinical trials for use cases where the clearest/greatest impact is expected, and maybe later on move to related use cases.