When cutting red tape puts patients at risk
I was three years old when I was diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, called juvenile rheumatoid or “little people’s arthritis” back in 1985. My parents were floored by the diagnosis because I did not look like my grandparents’ arthritis. I looked like a 3‑year‑old who did not like to be touched and then stopped walking. Before I even learned to read, I learned what it meant to live in a body that could suddenly turn on itself, and what it meant to depend on powerful medicines, often at adult doses, just to get through the day. Biologic drugs have transformed ...