Vicente Soldevilla lives, the fight continues!

This end of the week has been busy for anyone dedicated to information and, I’m not going to lie to you, also a little unpleasant. So I’m going to use this newsletter – with your permission – to make a love of the good news. I rescue three that have given me oxygen, hope and joy.

This group of friendsall family doctors recently graduated from the MIR, have agreed to save a health center that no one wanted to go to in Vallecas (Madrid). They had all trained in different destinations in the area and knew that Vicente Soldevilla was bad. The afternoon squares remained deserted after a cascade of casualties due to overload. The last doctor had resigned in January.

We can debate whether it is okay to leave the public health system of a humble neighborhood at the mercy of six doctors who propose to revive it, but history speaks of many things: of precariousness, of how there is not a sufficient institutional response and of the commitment to what public of those who are trained today and will serve us tomorrow. The worst thing is that Vicente Soldevilla is no exception. I wish it only happened here.

The other hopeful story comes with this interview I did with María Casanova-Acebes, the head of the cancer immunity group at the Cancer Research Center (CNIO). Last week a very group top of researchers met in Madrid to share what is known and what is not yet known about the most promising advanced therapy against the disease: immunotherapy.

He told us that this treatment, which fights tumor cells by putting the immune system to work, is almost completely unknown to science. He compares it to an iceberg: the tip is what has been understood. The rest remains to be explored, so we are still a long way from the therapy having reached its maximum potential.

However, what has already been achieved with some patients is spectacular. For example, people with melanoma with a life expectancy of three to five years have been completely cured, says the researcher. And progress is being made in its application in lung, breast or neck and head cancer. A revolution that has only shown its paw? Here is the full interview.

For revolution, the one that started in 2015 to treat hepatitis C. It is the third story that I would like to talk to you about this week. I don’t know if you know that Spain is in a privileged position to end the hepatitis C virus because it has had a cure for almost a decade. People with the active virus recover quickly and without sequelae thanks to very good antivirals. They are very expensive and the sick had to fight with the public system to have access to them. But we need to take one last step: Find 20,000 people who have it, according to estimates, and probably don’t know it.

While you were doing other things…

An intolerable hole

Can you imagine that you are on sick leave due to an abortion (voluntary or spontaneous, that is beside the point) and your work knows the reason? You don’t have to imagine it, because There is a loophole in the regulation that allows this to happen.. With abortions and also with painful rules: both casualties were provided with “special” protection in the last legislature, but what was promoted as an expansion of rights has had a hitherto unknown and quite problematic counterpart. The reasons for leaving are part of the privacy of the employees.

The Ministry of Social Security has committed, a few days after elDiario.es published the news, to “evaluate” the data provided to companies to guarantee the privacy of the workers. Let’s see what happens.

With this I’m done for today. Have a great weekend and see you next Saturday.

Sofia