There are some days I get so angry. I can't help but get angry. I have been in this body for twelve years now and still no cure. Heck, not even any real relief for more then an hour here and an hour there. And who am I kidding, I don't ever remember being completely pain free for the past twelve years. It is just a question of degrees. Is the pain barely manageable or not manageable at all…degrees indeed.
So I can't help but get angry sometimes. Angry at the fact that I got this disease in the first place. Angry at the fact that anybody has to get ra. Angry that ra exists at all!
But what I am most angry at, is that there is no cure for rheumatoid arthritis. And why not? I find it so hard to believe that with all the money that has been spent on research and the fact that this disease has existed since the caveman, that no one has come up with a cure.
Do they realize the cost of ra and the return on investment they will receive if they truly find a cure?
And so I set out on my mission to calculate the cost of ra. I calculate the cost of ra not to show how many dollars are spent by patients but rather what pharmaceutical companies will loose if a cure is found.
Cost of ra for 1.3 million people (number taken from national institute of health currently diagnosed with ra) x $60,000 ($23,44l + $31,931 + $123,661 / 3) x 20 years of treatment (this 20 years is a guesstimate on my part as I couldn't find any study to use for this number) = $1,560,000,000,000.00
OK, I think you see my point here.
This doesn't include the cost of surgeries, assistive devices, vitamins and loss of income by patients let alone the pain of ra and it's emotional cost to both the families and patients involved.
And from this calculation, I suspect why no cure has been sought…it is tragically the cost of ra.
It is definitely about dollars and definitely not about sense!
How do we change this?
Pub med.gov source used: Financial cost of early rheumatoid arthritis in the first year of medical attention
