Tuesday, May 08, 2007

IBN - Thank you

I feel good as I go to sleep today. Finally, there is someone making noise about something million other people and I are screaming out. What do all of us have in common? Answer - The fact that cancer has touched us somewhere or the other in our lives.
If you scroll down my blog, you would find an article or two closely related to this disease, and why so? Simply because, after having gone through the rigours of what this disease has to offer, one just can't seem to keep quiet and let things happen their way. My motto is to ensure a change in the way cancer is looked at and more so, treated in the years to come.
Firstly, thank you CNN-IBN and specifically Sagarika Ghosh and the entire team at India 360. You are the cause for this post coming up on my blog.
Thank you also to Tanweer Alam. I don't know you man, but I sure can figure out what you are going through at this point of time. For those trying to understand things, Tanweer was featured on India 360 on the 8th of May as a CNN-IBN Citizen Journalist raising valid issues about the cost of cancer drugs in the market today and the price that companies who manufacture these drugs put on them. Tanweer himself is a cancer survivor. An IIMB graduate, he quit his plum job to be a budding entrepreneur when GOD decided to change things around. Today, he says he's run out on his savings and is dependant on his father to pull him through this disease. For those wanting to know more, here's a link to Tanweer's blog: http://www.baawara.blogspot.com/
The entire program and this entire story just goes on to re-iterate my point and that was this. "Why on earth are people not able to understand the magnanimous cause and effects of this disease? Why on earth are people so ignorant to a disease which has statistically proven to have claimed more lives than AIDS itself? Why are health organisations across the world not driving this particular message down the throat of every human being alive today? Why are drug manufacturing companies looking to make business out of this catch-22 situation rather than coming to the aid of the lower and middle class suffering from this disease?"
I hope I find answers to these questions quickly enough. Else I hope I go out there and ensure that I find myself answers to these questions and in the process, help million others make a change in their lives. As someone who has been closely associated with this disease and in the process, has seen hard earned savings over 56 long years just dwindle away, I feel for every person going through the same situation today and that calls me to proclaim, "I'll make a change. I'll do whatever it takes to propagate a change in the way this disease is treated. I'll try my best to ensure that hard earned money is not lost completely on the treatment of this disease. I'll ensure that cancer survivors would long to survive to enjoy and make the most of their life long savings, not worrying about what they'll have to live with, if ever they do survive!!!"
Thanks once again Tanweer and Sagarika. This post is for you guys. And also for you Ms. Harmala Gupta, for your undying support towards this special cause.
Are the right people listening? Will all you cancer drug manufacturing companies come out of your patent wars and embrace something you are all ethically bound too? I hope, wish and pray you do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey...thanx for the link....I am sure very many people can relate to Tanweer Alam's narration....

Unknown said...

hey.. brilliant one.
I can so very well relate to Tanveer's narration.. feels great to read that he is fine...

Its always nice to read your blog.. great work...