Thursday, November 18, 2010

November 18, 2010 – Help! I’m a Market Segment

I ran across this link recently, describing a subscription newsletter issued by a financial-information firm, communicating the latest news and statistics on “the global NHL market.”

Yes, that’s right. The “NHL” in “NHL market” refers to non-Hodgkin lymphoma. There are actually financial analysts out there who make it their business to study the strength of companies developing drugs and other therapies to treat NHL.

We all know that health care in this country is profit-driven, but this displays the seamy underside of that reality. Some of these technological developments tracked by this service represent life and death for people like me. We follow this information in order to stay as healthy as we possibly can. Subscribers to this newsletter follow the same information in order to make a buck. Lots of bucks, actually.

I read this stuff and I end up feeling vaguely dirty, for no particular reason. How does it strike the rest of you, especially folks who are dealing with cancer?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

vismosarThere will always be people who want to profit from other peoples perils. I choose to focus on the good fact that there is research continuing and hope for a cure.