Obama care

[C.W. Sims]

Another really good point for universal health care is this. Did you know a man was recently cured of AIDS in Germany? He had contracted HIV and had also developed a rare type of cancer. The cure for the cancer was a bone marrow transfusion after total eradication of his immune system. HIV is a virus that lives in the immune system. However it invades other parts of the body and would have simply reinfected him. This is where universal health care came into play. Because there are certain people in this world with a natural immunity to HIV the doctor working on this man's case went through as many compatible donors as he had to just to find a person who was compatible and also carried the genetic immunity to HIV. When the man went through the transfusion and began to create his own immune cells again they were entirely untouchable by the HIV and it died out. At last check I read he had survived for two years.

Now don't get me wrong, this is not a cure for HIV as of yet, but it is a stepping stone, however this man would NEVER have been cured here in the US because the cost of testing and searching for a donor is only covered by insurance until the first compatible donor is found for the transfusion of bone marrow. It would never have been possible for his doctors to also look for the compatible donor who was also naturally immune to HIV because the simple cost would have been exorbitantly high to do so and no insurance would have paid for it.

Know what's really funny, the man wasn't even a real citizen of Germany. I can't even recall how it all came together but he was a resident of Germany, not a citizen, and yet was still allowed access to their Universal Health Care system. When you see things like this as an American and you see the anti-free health care rhetoric being spewed by small minded ignorant people it just sometimes makes you feel ashamed to be a part of the same culture.