The small number of biotech jobs in Georgia has more to do with money and power than it does with the religious right or stem cells. Atlanta is a modern city, but it's a wasteland when it comes to biotech (despite the presence of Emory, GA Tech and UGA). I used to work there a few years ago, but the few biotechs that were there have mostly shut down. I moved back to the Northeast to find a job.

The biotech industry is constricting and consolidating in a few cities. Stem cells aren't the big issue - most biotechs have nothing to do with stem cells. Big pharma is moving out of most of the South and Midwest - they've bought out most of the players in those areas and decided it's cheaper to shut them down. And without the big companies, the smaller biotech companies struggle to get funding. If you're a biotech and you're located near a bunch of other biotechs, you're seem as a better financial risk than a biotech in the middle of "nowhere" - whether that "nowhere" is red or blue. There are plenty of blue states that also struggle to keep biotechs alive (Michigan for example). The biotechs are consolidating more and more in Boston, California, New Jersey and NC (and even Research Triangle is struggling).

Stem cells are a minor issue compared with the struggle to get funding. The competition isn't with blue states as much as it is with China or India.

All of Western Europe has universal health coverage, but they don't all have single payer. Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands all have universal health coverage that isn't single payer - it's a mix of public and private.

What shocked me most about this story was his admission that he hadn't paid his mortgage in 7 months, but he was still living in his house. At the same time, renters who never missed a payment have been tossed out with almost no notice or recourse, because their landlords were foreclosed on. People keep saying "not everyone should buy a home" but it seems like home owners get a lot of breaks while renters have almost no rights in most states. Would a renter be left alone if they didn't pay their rent for 7 months?

I just finished seven grueling months of chemotherapy. Most of the other patients at my hospital seemed to have no problems, but I had severe nausea and vomiting for a week or more after every chemo session, and none of the anti-nausea medications worked. After each of the last few sessions, I gave serious thought to stopping the treatment, because the side effects were so bad. My odds were good, and I have a very good chance of having a normal life after my treatment is over, so I kept going. But I’ve decided that if I have a recurrence, I won’t get treatment again. At that point, I’d be getting treatment in hopes of a few more months, and I don’t see the point of going through that agony again for so little return.

I expected cancer treatments to be grueling. I’ve watched all the medical shows on TV and seen the movies of the week. But I was shocked at how I was treated. I guess I was expecting Nurse Hathaway to hold my hand while George Clooney ordered a miracle drug. Instead, I got a doctor who barely spent 5 minutes with me before he was off to the next patient, who couldn’t be bothered to figure out why the anti-nausea medication didn’t work. And nurses who accused me of “whining” and told me that my vomiting was bothering the other patients. The doctors and nurses treating Daniel Hauser may have done everything right, but not all cancer doctors help their patients get through the problems of treatment. As paulahsj said, it’s possible the doctors and nurses made this situation worse in the way they treated Daniel during his first chemo session.

Still, this isn’t a case of a patient who wants to stop treatments because they’re futile. Hodgkin’s is as close to “curable” as you get in cancer treatments, and it’s not clear that Daniel Hauser really understands the ramifications of refusing treatment. But I hope that he gets as much help as he can to get through them.