Obama’s arrogance shows on Gruber
The PolitiFact column headline read, “Obama understates Gruber’s role in ACA” (Metro, Nov. 22). Understates? Hardly. His glib characterization of Jonathan Gruber as merely “some adviser” is right up there with his best-known “understatement” — a.k.a the “lie of the year for 2013” — namely that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”
As Politifact research showed, Obama did indeed know and meet with Gruber, as did his staff on numerous occasions. Obama’s politically motivated distancing from, and dismissal of, Gruber is purposely misleading, petty and unbecoming. Does it not bother anyone else but me that the president of our country can be so flippantly disingenuous, particularly in the face of fact and reality? If not, it should.
DAN COWLES, CUMMING
Life-saving value in expensive drugs
In his Nov. 21 column, “Sticker shock for common drugs” (Opinion), Andy Miller discusses the high price he had to pay for a common drug, Doxycycline, but then in the last paragraph moves into new territory. He comments on a new breakthrough drug for Hepatitis C that costs $84,000 per treatment cycle, saying that it makes the drug companies happy but has negative effects on health care costs for the patients who receive it.
Somewhere in this discussion, someone has to mention that these patients are also receiving life-saving treatment that would not be available except for the drug company who developed it. The real issue is not cost, but value; what is it worth to have new treatments that prolong life while decreasing toxicity? One would hope that at least some of the patients are happy, too.
DAVID H. LAWSON, DECATUR
Establish Ebola research at source
Regarding the Ebola columns of the Nov. 21 Opinion page (“Reveal Ga.’s Ebola hospitals,” “Civil rights have a place in conversation”), which dealt with the politics of handling potential Ebola cases in Georgia, a long-term solution is for the global community to consider establishing a CDC-like center in Africa. Staffed with well-trained medical and scientific personnel, both native and international, this center should conduct research on local conditions that can help breed the next Ebola-like virus. It can formulate, publish and coordinate effective treatment protocols rapidly across the continent.
Rather than send rapid-response teams from the CDC in Atlanta, the center and its international counterparts could sponsor and participate in state-of-the-art virology research. Global pharmaceutical companies can help by establishing African manufacturing capabilities to produce low-cost drugs and vaccines based on the center’s research findings. Aid organizations and philanthropists everywhere could support the center financially. Let’s diagnose, treat, and contain these viruses at their source to reduce the risk of an epidemic here.
C. S. THACHENKARY, ATLANTA
