All Medicare recipients are hurt now that this unproven Alzheimer’s drug is covered
Drug shouldn’t be covered
I am furious about the increase in Medicare’s Part B 2022 monthly premium to $170.10, one of the largest increases ever. It’s partially because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are setting aside a reserve in case it decides that Medicare will cover Biogen’s Aduhelm, an unproven and ridiculously expensive drug for people diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s disease.
A Food and Drug Administration expert panel voted almost unanimously that Aduhelm should not be approved, but the agency, under duress from the Alzheimer’s Association, approved it anyway. The cost is $56,000 per year per patient, and side effects such as brain swelling and bleeding were seen in 40% of trial patients.
- Elva Roy, Arlington
What’s on the inside counts
It is solipsistic to state, as the author of a Sunday letter to the editor did, (4C) that certain books available in school libraries are merely about “controversial subjects” and not in fact pornography. Has she ever seen the graphic sexual content in many of these books?
In knee-jerk fashion, some defend the books rather than consider with an open mind that some of this stuff is outright filth. Parents have a big stake in what is on school library shelves, and there should be fair and open inquiry into this matter.
- Julie Wende, Fort Worth
Don’t compound Donati’s mistake
As many of us feared, it looks as if the TCU athletic director will take the path of least resistance and hire the SMU football coach, a flash in the pan whose team is again falling apart late in the season. (Nov. 14, 1B, “SMU’s finish hurting Sonny Dykes’ chances of going to TCU”)
Many TCU alumni realize that really qualified coaches do not trust athletic director Jeremiah Donati because of his lack of maturity and class in the midseason termination of head coach Gary Patterson, who built the TCU football program from nothing to national prominence.
We can only hope that the TCU trustees on the search committee will not be intimidated into supporting his decision.
- John Cawthron Sr., McGregor
Casinos are a net good for all
Like almost half of Americans, I enjoy going to the casino and gambling. But because I’m a Texan, I must make the long trip to Oklahoma to partake in most forms of gambling.
The topic has fallen out of the limelight, with only 29 of 50 states having casinos. But legalization of gambling nationwide is the government’s best course of action. Gambling is beneficial to surrounding communities because of a fair percentage of tax revenues being allocated to education, infrastructure and other public services — upwards of $750 million in some states.
- Lane Lacy, Roanoke
I don’t like the new approach
Count me as not a fan of the Star-Telegram’s new Sunday layout. News starting (barely) on Page 12A converts the Sunday edition into a magazine. Nothing that happened in the 48 hours since your Friday edition was worthy of mention on the front page or the first 11 pages?
I prefer a newspaper with news front and center and features much deeper within. If I wanted a Sunday magazine, I would have subscribed to one.
- John Penn, Fort Worth
The same DC song yet again
Each time Republicans leave the White House after a spree of deregulation and grabbing every penny in sight for them and their wealthy friends, Democrats are left with inflation and depression or near depression. I don’t see the wealthy getting poorer.
- Gary B. Hicks, Forest Hill