Trials and errors
Wednesday, January 21 2009
Add to the list of jerkish things that insurance companies can do: they can cancel your policy if you participate in a clinical trial. (At least, they can in Colorado.) I would say this beggars belief, but I’ve quit believing that I live in a world where insurance companies actually contribute anything to health care.
I have participated in three clinical trials for Crohn’s meds – one for J695, an IL-12 agonist; one for Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (GCSF), a drug more often used for chemotherapy patients; and a trial for extra-corporeal photophoresis, which is a fairly bizarre procedure that involves giant needles and a UV lamp. The J695 trial was a resounding success, the other two less so.
In any case, the point wasn’t my own betterment; it was expanding our knowledge of the disease and exploring new ways to fight it. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out ClinicalTrials.gov. But even if you can’t volunteer yourself, you should resist insurers attempts to exclude trials subjects from their health care.
