Humira Health Insurance - News
Humira Prefilled Syringe 20mg/0.4mL received manufacturing and marketing approval from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on July 1 of this year and was subsequently listed on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Price List on September 12.
Taking personal responsibility for one's own health is an artful dodge that suggests the government has no responsibility to provide health care to its population. It is an ideological mantra that health insurance company PR spinmeisters relentlessly
Humira Medication | Humira And Indications
In February 2009, Fred Delano of the advertising firm Delano & Company claims he was knocking on death's door after taking what he considers the "most dangerous drug in the world."
Delano was prescribed Humira to treat psoriatic arthritis, a chronic inflammatory disease of the joints and skin. The drug is primarily used to treat various types of arthritis, as well as Crohn's disease.
Delano began taking Humira in October 2008. By late December, he started experiencing flu-like symptoms.
"I really started going downhill after Christmas," said Delano, who filed a lawsuit against the makers of Humira this past summer. "I was getting migraine headaches, night sweats, uncomfortable aches and pains."
By January 2009, he was suffering hearing loss and weight loss and was having trouble walking. By the first of February, Delano began experiencing delusions, and he admitted himself to the VA hospital emergency room.
After multiple tests, Delano was diagnosed with disseminated histoplasmosis, a life-threatening fungal infection that's prevalent in Memphis and the Mississippi River Valley.
Delano believes he contracted the disease because Humira weakened his immune system. Michael Gelfand, an infectious disease specialist, said people in Memphis unknowingly inhale histoplasmosis through the air, but it doesn't typically result in sickness.
"Medicines like Humira keep your immune system from killing your own body, and as a result, the overall immune system is weakened," said Gelfand, professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. "One doesn't get an immune response to histoplasmosis, and it is able to progress, spread, and cause trouble."
When Delano was prescribed Humira, he said the medication didn't contain warnings that people living in the Mississippi River Valley were at a higher risk of experiencing bacteria and fungal infections.
According to his lawsuit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered Abbott Laboratories, the makers of Humira, to warn patients and doctors of an increased risk of potentially fatal Humira-induced histoplasmosis 26 days before he was prescribed the drug. He claims the company waited nearly two years to issue warnings, and he is seeking several million dollars in actual and punitive damages.