A word in defense of SERONO LABS

[Guest guest]

It's obvious that Serono Labs and/or some of its employees engaged in some very unethical practices like, "remuneration to physicians to induce them to prescribe Serostim for which payments were made by the Medicaid.." and "..offered physicians an all expenses paid trip to a medical conference in Cannes, France in return for the physicians writing up to 30 new prescriptions of Serostim" and ".. for treating lipodystrophy, a separate condition involving weight gain in the mid-section and weight loss in the extremities". But I owe them my life.My weight had fallen from about 195 pounds to a little under 130 pounds in less than 2 years without any attempt on my part to loose weight. In fact I discovered that drinking 4 cans of Sustical a day in addition to eating normally would just about counteract my 1 to 2 pound a week weight loss. - It's hard as hell (and expensive) to drink 4 cans of Sustical a day in addition to eating normally. Then I managed to get in on the end of the Serostim trial because it had "finished" with too few participants. My weight jumped back to 155 pounds and the shape of my body changed, well dramatically is too mild a word. Serostim most definitely counteracts visceral abdominal fat in favor of pure muscle if you exercise. (Some people may recall a self-satire picture I took in the shower with a paper bag over my head "You only want my body" because of course it did nothing for facial wasting.)You might say they were only trying to get their expensive drug approved and that's true.But about a year and a half after completing the trial my weight dropped again to around 135 pounds. Serono GAVE me a 3 month re-course of Serostim administered through the wonderful folks at NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders http://www.rarediseases.org/ ). I'm happy to report that the result of the short recourse appears to be pretty much permanent as far as weight goes as my mine remains in the 150's to this day. If I had ten grand and a willing doctor I'd be very tempted to repeat the short course every couple of years just for vanity's sake.I'm sorry they did what they did because it's going to be incredibly hard to get Medicare or any insurance to pay for it now but the trial saved me. And Serono didn't get any money or publicity or test results for the compassion they later showed me. So they may gave been chasing dollars but they have also shown (me) another side.