Pharma; it works, bitches.

title s/o to XKCD

I’m a cancer survivor. Melanoma. Stage IIc. An index card sized chunk of my face was removed from my skull in 2006 to get it all. Will it come back? I don’t get to know.

If you’ve ever battled cancer, you’re alive because of ‘Big Pharma.’

The broccoli you ate? Not it.

The ‘unique blend of natural herbs’ you swallowed like gummy-worms? Guess again.

The kale enemas you took? You’re kidding, right?

This piece originally appeared on my blogspot in 2017.

We’re survivors because of the men and women who make up “Big Pharma.” Those billion-dollar drug companies? That’s why I’m alive. That’s why every cancer survivor is alive.

It’s pharmacy - The science and practice of developing, preparing, and dispensing medicinal drugs.

The Novocain that allows our doctor to take a pain-free biopsy? It’s Pharmacy.

The reagents and stains that pathologists use to determine if your biopsy is benign or malignant? Pharmacy.

The stitches that dissolve on the inside of you after a wide excision? Pharmacy.

The antibiotics that kill the secondary infection that you picked up? Pharmacy.

The Keytruda, the Opdivo, the interferon, the Yervoy? Pharmacy.

The pain meds that keep us from tearing out what’s left of our hair? Pharmacy.

The anesthesia that makes 6 hours of surgery possible, the drugs that paralyze us so surgeons can work on a patient who is not a-twitching on the table, the machines that breath for us while we are unconscious, the sterile technique, the radiologic imaging that allows surgeons to accurately target our lesions? Yep, it’s all thanks to Big Pharma.

I’m also a had a couple of singularly massive pulmonary emboli. PEs are the single biggest ‘drop dead in your tracks’ killers of healthy people. They kill 300,000 people in the US every year.

The imaging dyes that allowed my team to read my CT scans? Pharmacy.

The heparin that saved my life? Pharmacy.

The 4 mg of Warfarin I take every evening that keeps me alive? Pharmacy. (FYI-I’m on Eliquis now, in 2026)

I get it. These are massive corporations and we are tiny people. We’re each of us merely one out of 350,000,000 in the USA, and we feel damn insignificant. Cancers are so random and puny humans don’t like to accept random. Random makes us angry and angry people need to be angry at someone. But you are angry with the wrong someone. The pricing structures? Yep, they are messed up, but until capitalism is overthrown, we’re going to have to sort this one out.

<Teachable moment alert>

There will never be a cure for “cancer.” Why?

1) We are, every single one of us, going to die.

2) There are 100s of different cancers and each one has its own subsets. Do the math. You have trillions of cells in your body.

3.72 x 1013 cells. 37,200,000,000,000.

Inside every single cell in your body are 3 billion pieces of information, 3,000,000,000 pieces of data, and each cell doesn’t always get the message. Cells don’t always follow their instructions properly. When that happens too frequently in one spot, cancer is the result. That’s a lot of different sorts of cancers.

Simple concept. Every set of cancers has their own set of keys; ergo, each needs their own drugs.

Do the math. 4 trillion x 3 billion. That’s a lot of stuff to go wrong.

I promise, nobody in the pharmacy industry wants you to die. There is a lot of money to be made in the treatment of old people.

There is no magic that they are holding back that prevents cancer. Real research takes time. The first antibiotic, penicillin, was discovered 89 years ago. That’s only 34,000 days ago. That’s not many days.

I’m alive because of pharmaceutical companies. Everyone I know who’s faced down the Beast, they’re alive because of pharmaceuticals. I hate the price gouging, too. It’s horrific. And yet…

You wanna be mad at someone over cancer? I feel you. Cancer killed my little brother in 2012. But it wasn’t “Big Pharma” that did it.

Pharmacy. It works, bitches.

Check out my book Melanoma, It Started with a Freckle on Amazon and Audible. It’s the story of a man and melanoma; it’s my story. Thanks for reading.

Got a friend who can’t stop telling you about how their essential oils or whatever are the keys to immortality? Consider a share. And as always-likes, comments, follows, and shares drive both your algorithm and Substack’s. Thanks for reading

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