Methotrexate in Our Madness

 

“We used to spend $200 a week just going out to have fun, or going and buying extra groceries

if we needed it, and now we can’t even do that… We’re barely able to buy what we need.”

Kelly King, a former factory worker in Greensburg, Ind., who is currently sidelined because of a back injury.

“This is a notice to let you know that we are pausing all prescriptions and subsequent refills of methotrexate.

This decision has been made in response to the reversal of Roe vs. Wade.”

Virginia Doctor’s message to rheumatoid arthritis patient.

Red states are disproportionately powerful, literally the new shot-callers in our new dystopia. That the majority of Americans are moderate, believe that abortion access should be allowed, guns should be subject to reasonable control and that voting should be encouraged, is largely irrelevant. They lack the extremism that gives rise to passionate commitment to right-wing conspiracy-theory nationalism, MAGA if you will with a large dose of White supremacism (replacement theory). Unlike “most of us,” these right-wing populists are willing to bear arms against the concept of “antifa” (liberalism, free choice and other kind/“woke” values) – there is no real “antifa” organization, by the way – and subvert the election process. Hence, they literally are asserting power by force against the majority, who are unwilling to engage in meaningful opposition.

To make matters worse, there is a growing feeling among too many voters that this country is not governed by elections anymore. Apathy, perhaps even antipathy, against voting at all. According to a NY Times pre-midterm polls, the Democratic party is staggering in search of a voice, despite the Roe vs Wade reversal. Weak leadership and an economic disastrous inflationary slam are strong calling cards. Joe Biden is old and not dynamic. “In a sign of deep vulnerability and of unease among what is supposed to be his political base, only 26 percent of Democratic voters said the party should renominate him in 2024.” NY Times, July 11th reporting on the results of that poll. Kamala Harris is even less popular.

If Biden and Trump were facing each other in an election right now, the race is too close to call (it is within a margin of error). If Biden were to face any other MAGA candidate today, he would easily be defeated. The Times poll found that age and job performance (inflation, primarily) were Biden’s greatest vulnerabilities. In a strange twist, blue collar America, once the bastion of the Democratic Party, is now the backbone of Trumpism. While progressive policies – from climate change, abortion rights, gun control to BLM to LGBTQ rights and access to affordable higher education – are a truly noble set of values, these are viewed as elitist, out of touch, now cast as “socialism” by the right (not remotely definitionally correct), and missing the point: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The Supreme Court’s laissez-faire support of voting distortions and gerrymandering, the Trump-reconfigured Court’s effectively siding with the religious MAGA right in 74% of their recent decisions, only reinforces that right-wing control of national policies. See my July 6th Selling Out Individual Rights blog for specifics. Indeed, the Court’s willingness this fall to rehear a case (Moore vs Harper) – which effectively upheld the North Carolina Supreme Court’s rejection of its state’s legislature’s gerrymandered effort to reverse a redistricting mandate from voter-created redistricting commission – could result in an affirmation of Donald Trump’s position that state legislatures, not voters or elected electors, are the arbiters of presidential elections. Under the guise of “states’ rights.” The rise of the well-armed and organized nationalist militia, firmly aligned with the new MAGA GOP, is their back-up!

The leakage of right-wing power into the bluest of the blue states is expanding. Start with the battle of red states attempting to use the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause to submit blue states to red state criminal sanctions against red state residents traveling to blue states for abortions, plus the right-wing desire to impose an abortion ban everywhere. Resurrecting the long-since-reversed, 1896 Dred Scott vs Sandford case? Add the Supreme Court’s recent decision to enable easier access to a right to carry concealed firearms, a big city nightmare, to the list. Culture wars are not at that level, but troubling incursions on free speech.

And then there are the “little” matters (not if you are medically reliant on the treatment!) … like prescription drugs used to treat autoimmune disorders (like Lupus), inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, cancer or rheumatoid arthritis that could also possibly be used to induce an abortion. Physicians, pharmacies and pharma manufacturers are seeing continuing to make, prescribe or distribute methotrexate as exposing them to legal (civil and criminal) risks, even as those who need that treatment are left hanging. Holding back on methotrexate impacts the entire nation. Writing for the July 11th Los Angeles Times, Sonja Sharp explains the risk:

“In Texas, dispensing methotrexate to someone who uses it to induce a miscarriage after 49 days of gestation is a felony; that makes pharmacists hesitant to fill such prescriptions for almost anyone with a uterus. A new total ban on abortion in Tennessee will effectively criminalize any medication that could disrupt pregnancy past the point of fertilization, with strict exceptions for a patient who will otherwise die. And in Virginia, confusion over rules about who is permitted to prescribe drugs ‘qualified as abortifacients’ may be blocking access to the medication. [Virginia is a purple state that has not banned abortion.]

“Methotrexate was originally developed as a chemotherapy agent more than 60 years ago. But in low doses, it has proved to be one of the safest, least expensive and most effective treatments for roughly a dozen autoimmune conditions, including juvenile idiopathic arthritis and Crohn’s disease… ‘It’s one of the most common medications that I prescribe,’ said Dr. Grant Schulert, a pediatric rheumatology specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. ‘It’s really a mainstay of our practice.’… Indeed, methotrexate was first approved to treat rheumatic illnesses in 1959, before Schulert was born and almost 15 years before Roe vs. Wade was decided.” Welcome to a nation ruled by a minority of “anything goes” extremists, willing to use guns to enforce their control.

I’m Peter Dekom, and this nationalist, White “United States,” governed by increasing violence, a proliferation of guns, is not the nation that fought two world wars to preserve democracy.