Somewhere in America, a mother is sitting at her kitchen table reading a press release from a pharmaceutical company. It says they’ve developed a treatment for her son’s lethal disease.
The language is familiar: unprecedented, transformative, paradigm-shifting. And it’s the first thing that has sounded like hope to her in years.
The company knows something she doesn’t. Their clinical trial data isn’t actually as good as the headline implies. But she won’t know that for a while yet.
How could she?
As she reads, she can feel her body losing control. She clutches her hands in front of her chest and holds her breath. She’s shaking violently as the tears begin to spill over.
The patient advocacy group that emailed her the press release receives funding from the drug company. But she doesn’t know that either.
How could she?
She sobs. Deep heaves that start at her core.
What she knows too well is that her son is getting worse — and this document is the first thing that has made her feel some…
