AlphaMale

Misunderstood

Today a lady told me I'm full of baloney.

She used more ladylike words.

She referred to the blog "Are you nervous?" below.

My excuse: I was misunderstood.

I didn't mean to mock research on a cure for lung disease. (The central goal of the Alpha-1 Foundation is a cure for Alpha-1.) I didn't mean people shouldn't hope.

I meant: Our hopes often get sky-high for a new drug, a new research study. We tingle with anticipation. We're disappointed, over and over.

I'm skeptical. I think that's realistic.

Am I still full of it?

Let me know what you think. Just click on the "Email me" link to the right. (And thanks.)

Are you nervous?

Say you're heavily invested in companies that make drugs to treat lung disease. Or your job depends on marketing those drugs.

There's a drug being tested that promises to let people with damaged lungs grow new, healthy ones. It sounds like a cure for all lung disease.

Are you nervous? I'd relax.

Aspirin was the first modern miracle drug. Now painkillers pack shelves in every drug store. Have we eliminated pain?

Penicillin was the second modern miracle drug. Penicillin and its hundreds of cousins have saved many lives. But every year, microbes learn to resist more antibiotics -- creating the need for more and more.

No drug is ever the final answer.

The miracle drug

Suppose the miracle drug works.

The drug hasn't been given a name yet, but it's supposed to let your lungs grow new tissue to replace the diseased part.

So what happens then?

We all stand in line to get our pills or shots to grow our new lungs.

Then what?

Well, the UT Southwestern Medical Center shuts down its vaunted lung transplant program. In St. Louis, Barnes-Jewish does the same. Superb transplant teams across the country start looking for other work.

The Alpha-1 augmentation therapies -- Aralast, Prolastin, Zemaira -- are  instantly obsolete. Aren't they? Why bother to protect our lungs from damage when we can always grow more?

The market dries up for billion-dollar drugs like Advair and Spiriva.

The tobacco companies are thrilled. They run ads like this:

DON'T WORRY. BE HAPPY.

Every pack of Camels comes with a coupon for $1 off your supply of New Instant Lung-Gro!

I'd probably be out of a job.

These are called side effects.

...Why not grow your own?

British researchers might have the cure for Alpha-1.

And lung disease in general.

They're testing Alphas to see if a new drug can regrow their damaged lungs. Might work on brain damage, too. You don't believe me?

Read on.

So you need new lungs...

Maybe you're so sick, only a lung transplant can save you.

Mostly, it's not this dramatic. Usually it's a choice. You decide your quality of life is so poor, you'll accept big risks for a chance to make it better.

You make the decision knowing:

• You might die waiting. There are never enough lung donors.
• The average lifespan after lung transplant is still only five years.
• It's very expensive: $150,000 or so.
• To keep your body from rejecting the new lung, you'll take drugs with life-threatening side effects. Also very expensive: they'll probably end up costing twice as much as the surgery.

But your mind is made up.

So who do you trust with your life? What transplant center is the best?

UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas says it's No. 1.

Are you sold?

(UT Southwestern is marketing itself here. The press release is a selling tool. Nothing wrong with it: the facts are selective, but still facts.)

But if you are sold, do you go to UT Southwestern? Probably not. You go where your health insurer says you can go. If you're in that lucky minority with a choice of transplant centers across the country, UT wants your business.

Dog bites

May is Alpha-1 Awareness Month in Florida.

Any day now, Jeb Bush will make it official. He'll do it because I asked him to.

Other Alphas across the country have done the same. Sometimes a group drives a long way to the state capitol to have a picture taken as The Guv smiles and signs the proclamation. In a small enough town, the local paper might even print the picture.

Does it help?

No.

We're wasting our time.

I say this with great respect for all the Alphas working to get more people diagnosed. There's too much noise in the marketplace: too many days, weeks, months dedicated to something or other.

Want to find a week dedicated to anything at all? Check National What Week? Among the many goodies: Bramley Apple Week, Be Nice to Nettles Week, European Bat Week, International Bog Day, National Moth Night and my favorite, International Compost Awareness Week.

And the site has just one subject: the environment.

• National Dog Bite Prevention Week is the third week in May. I'll buy you a beer if you show me how this has reduced dog bites.
• Bet you $50 (donated to the Alpha-1 Foundation) you can't name an Alpha who got tested because somebody said it was Alpha-1 Awareness Month.

 There must be better ways to get attention. Finding some of them is the goal of this blog.