Why is someone getting rich off of my diseased Ileum?

Half asleep, I clutch my overstuffed purse, full of breakfast, lunch, book, ipod and heels as I climb up the subway steps already 20 minutes late for work. As I reach the top of the grueling climb up the subway steps, I can't help but see a purple advertisement smushed onto the concrete walkway. I see the word "Crohn's" on this ad.

Huh?

Did I really see "Crohn's?"

A metro swipe and and another flight later, I reach the platform. I see more purple ads flattened and trampled into the concrete of the platform. "Crohn's control"

I pick a dirty ad off the ground. It's an insert. An insert from the Metro or the AM, a free paper available every weekday morning. The insert is an ad for Humira, a biologic treatment approved for Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn's Disease, and perhaps others. I've only heard of it because since experiening my first sigificant flare-up with Crohn's Disease in 2004, I've become obsessed with learning everything there is to know about the Disease. I read about Humira when the FDA approved it last year.

The ad boasts that Humira would allow the user to go out to dinner again. The ad boasted control. Ask your doctor, it said. It said all the right things. As someone who lives each meal and every moment in between with this disease, this ad spoke to me. It knew its audience.

But, I wondered.

How many people who read "Metro" or "AM" have any connection to Crohn's Disease? 1.4 million Americans have been diagnosed with Crohn's Disease and/or Ulcerative Colitis, with about half suffering from Crohn's, so how many of those 700,000 ride a New York subway or walk the New York city streets? Is this ad duplicated elsewhere? How many are candidates for Humira? How many suffer from this moderate to severe Crohn's Disease that this ad suggests?

Every 8 weeks I receive a similar biologic treatment to Humira. Remicade. Remicade has changed my life forever. Remicade makes it so I can wake up each morning, go to work, eat real food, go to the bathroom, hang out with my friends, and bottom line: live my life.

Remicade allows me to be healthy enough to eat dinner at a restaurant without the anxiety that one menu item over another will decide whether I can leave the house or not. Remicade does everything the Humira ad suggests. Remicade and Humira are similar drugs; Humira is a more advanced biologic treatment, though.

What concerns me is this obsessive advertising. Is it necessary? Is it cost-effective? The ad hits me - these drugs are my lifeline and I would not be a functioning person without them. But at the same time, this lifeline has become my chain.

In order to receive Remicade every 8 weeks, I must have health insurance. Remicade is patented and my Doctor's office bills out over $9,000 in charges to the insurance company. Yes, $9,000.

My insurance company usually only pays out around $3,000, but still. $3,000? Yes, these treatments are ground-breaking and have prevented me from having surgery that would remove part or all of my colon and God-forbid, an infinite number of other serious health complications. $3,000 is indefinitely less than the suffering those experiences would bring.

Although, I still wonder.

Why are they advertising? With this small group of people living with the disease and their circles of family and friends who may hand this ad over to them, they seem to be spending so much money.

And who ultimately pays?

I do. I pay.

And you do, too. Regardless of whether you have Crohn's Disease or know someone who does or have even heard of this taboo disease, you pay. Because you have health insurance. Because you have a job that pays for your health insurance. Or because someone pays for your insurance. Or because you don't have insurance, which in that case, you pay the greatest price.

The advertising costs drive up the price of the drug. And I become a slave to it because I need it just to live my life.

We have a serious problem in this country when necessities become fodder for advertisement the same as candy or a car is advertised.

I've done no academic research on this topic. I'm purely a consumer and observer of how my life choices have become chained to the pharmaceutical, insurance and health care industry. I can only report what I've experienced.

Why can't a Crohn's patient's doctor be the first to tell him or her about Humira? Why does he or she have to hear about it from a glossy full-color insert in the free subway newspaper?

Why is someone getting rich off of my diseased ileum?




Crohn's Disease is an autoimmune disorder, causing inflammation of the digestive tract and other serious complications. To learn more about Crohn's Disease, Remicade or Humira, visit: www.ccfa.org