Seattle Seahawks Forced to Flee America for Medical Treatment
It’s past time the United States updated FDA regulations
Baseball may still identify as America’s pastime, but every year consumers prove football is the country’s true love. The intertwining of national identity and the NFL can often be troublesome, such as when the Pentagon pays the league to promote the military — or the large subsidies governments grant to help billionaires pay for new stadiums. Yet increasingly America’s best athletes in America’s favorite sport have to flee the country to get medical treatment, because of an opponent more dangerous than Ndamukong Suh: the Food and Drug Administration.
On Monday, Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll informed the media that five players on the team had left the country in order to receive Regenokine therapy. With linebacker KJ Wright just returning to the team after his own therapeutic trip, this means over 10 percent of the team’s roster had to go overseas to get ready for the 2017 season.
The treatment, which includes injecting the patient with a serum derived from their own blood, has become popular among athletes suffering from joint pain. In 2012, Kobe Bryant famously flew to Germany for the treatment, which he credited with allowing him to continue playing basketball. Dr. Peter Wehling claims this treatment has a 90 percent success rate, which has been supported by published studies.
Unfortunately for America’s athletes, Regenokine still has not been approved by the FDA. This means it’s more expensive and difficult for athletes to receive the treatment’s benefits. And it’s almost impossible for the millions of average Americans suffering from chronic pain to get it.
This is one of many ways the FDA blocks patients from obtaining potentially life-changing medical care. While the federal government passed a “right to try” bill this year for patients suffering from terminal illness, Americans will still have to leave the country for non-approved treatments.
Making this situation even more frustrating, it appeared possible that earlier this year the Trump administration might change this outdated view of medicinal regulation. Prior to Scott Gottlieb’s appointment as head of the FDA, Donald Trump interviewed Balaji Srinivasan and Jim O’Neill — two associates of Peter Theil — who both have the radical belief that everyone should have the “right to try” medical treatments they believe could improve their lives.
O’Neill, for example, has advocated changing the FDA approval process to focus on “safety,” rather than “effectiveness.” Since it’s easier to prove a drug is not toxic than an effective cure, this would have radically improved consumer choice in medical treatment. It would also effectively end the American ban on Regenokine treatments that our greatest athletes increasingly demand. By going with a more traditional FDA appointment, Trump forfeited one of the most important ways he could have improved American healthcare.
This is also evidence the Republican Party’s single focus on Obamacare has sabotaged the larger goal of improving the US healthcare system. It is precisely the growing regulatory state around medicine — that long predates the Obama administration — that has driven up costs, restricted access, and damaged quality.
Until politicians, particularly those who give lip service to capitalism, understand that basic fact, America’s healthcare system will continue to suffer — as will the general perception that markets can handle healthcare. As a result, more Americans will be forced to look elsewhere for elective treatments, and not just professional athletes.
