Yervoy For The World

It’s not exactly breaking news at the Hotel Melanoma that the ‘new kid in town’ melanoma treatment drugs Yervoy and Zelboraf are horrendously expensive. There are valid business and economic justifications for their high price-- like the high research and development costs of finding effective new cancer treatment drugs, the relatively small market of patients who will receive and benefit from the drugs, drug patents that expire after twenty years, and the lack of competing treatment alternatives. But none of them provide any consolation for a mole mate struggling with the potentially devastating financial impact of this black curse; in a word, it just bites.

Maybe we all ought to start buying a weekly lottery ticket and pledge to use any windfall prizes to help those struggling with treatment costs? Meanwhile, I wish Genentech would shave a few bucks off the cost of Zelboraf rather than spending money advertising the drug on my Facebook newsfeed page. Not holding my breath for either of those dreams to come true, I’ll sign off with a new version of Three Dog Night’s “Joy To The World”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf-d-Ka30EY&feature=fvst


Melanoma was a black fog
Was no good kind of time
I never understood a single word docs said
But I took their clinical trial
And they always have some mighty fine trials

Yervoy for the world
All the boys and girls
Yervoy for the clinics that will treat you free
Yervoy for you and me

If I were the king of the world
Tell you what I'd do
I'd throw away those tans and bad scans for new plans
To make free meds for you
Singing...

Yervoy for the world
All the boys and girls
Yervoy for the clinics that will treat you free
Yervoy for you and me

You know I loved my ray days
Loved to have my sun
I'm a sunlight shyer and a midday hider
A sunscreenin' son-of-a-gun
I said a sunscreenin’ son-of-a-gun

Joy for C world
All the boys and girls
Joy for a treatment that will kill Black C
Joy for you and me

Joy for C world
All the boys and girls
Joy for a treatment that will kill Black C
Joy for you and me

Joy for C world
All the boys and girls
Joy for a treatment that will kill Black C
Joy for you and me

Joy for C world
All the boys and girls
Joy for a treatment that will kill Black C
Joy for you and me

Joy for C world
All the boys and girls
Joy for a treatment that will kill Black C
Joy for you and me