A Much-Later Epilogue -- On Chagas. We Covered The Travails, In The Early-Teens... Of Shkreli's Attempt To Control, And Profit -- From An[other] Old Drug.

To be certain, the one known leading treatment for Chagas has seen a tortured 25 year history. The "tortured" aspect of the story was courtesy of Martin Shkreli's end-games as he was flailing -- and flaming out -- in what turned out to be the last of his federal securities fraud schemes. He violated ownership disclosure rules to take control of a small company and then tried to wrest control of the drug from a non-profit. It had been made, nearly free, in Central and South America for decades at that point.

Then he went to jail, that company filed Chapter 11, and the drug-rights bounced around for the better part of 15 years. Even so, it is no cure. It is (at best) a 50-50 shot. [As an aside (and why I noticed this item), I worked in the 1990s for a brilliant scientist that discovered a better "cure" -- but it never made it to market, because it turns out that it is wildly expensive to produce, and the eight million or so sufferers are almost all nearly indigent, and mostly live in geographies with not much in the way of public health funding. So the rights to make it sit, in an Indiana Jones-like virtual warehouse, somewhere -- to this day.]

But it caught my eye that The UK Guardian has a story -- on the possibility that the Governors in the Southern US, Florida, Texas and Louisiana, particularly. . . might be able to convince Tangerine 2.0 that Chagas ought to be treaed as an endemic disease (at least in the Southern US), and then far more affluent communities could be tapped for treatment -- and reimbursements. Here's that story, on this soggy, cool and rainy Saturday morning:

. . .Dr. Norman Beatty, who has studied the kissing bugs, said that like Valerie and Luna, most people in the US have not heard of Chagas, even though it is not just present south of the border but within the country. . . .

[A]bout 20 to 30% of people infected can develop chronic issues later in life such as an enlarged heart and heart failure, or an enlarged esophagus or colon, leading to trouble eating or going to the bathroom. . . [a]bout 8 million people, including 280,000 in the United States, have the disease, according to the CDC. . . .

The goal is to “detect early and treat early to avoid the chronic, often permanent damage that can occur”, Beatty explained.

The treatment took two months, during which Luna experienced side effects like hives and severe swelling in her hands and feet, she said.

While she is finished with the treatment, there is no definitive test to determine whether such patients will develop chronic Chagas symptoms, but it’s less likely, Beatty said.

“I hope the CDC takes it seriously,” Valerie said, “and that we can move forward and have good awareness, so that people want to be tested and get tested and get the treatment they need. . . .”

Now you know -- but I may ring up some of the science staff at that former employer, to alert them, that they still hold what might be very valuable rights to a new small molecule treatment. We shall see. But this could be a silver lining -- from DeSantis' And Abbott's closeness to Tangerine -- since it impacts their states pretty severely now (and yes, that's a separate climate change story). Onward.

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