@ Anne-Marie: Damn. You know I started thinking the same thing after reading John's wife's post! I'm going to tell J. Maybe that will light a fire under his procrastinating posterior.

And, the post Charm made...!!!!!! With all the time J's spent in tick country in the South, it's relevant to him. And, it's probably relevant to many other patients who don't live in the South. I'm almost positive there was not a word mentioned to J about ticks before therapy.

There should be a major news article and/or a professional paper written to help prevent what happened to John from happening again. It won't eliminate all Erbitux fatalities. But, it could prevent many of them, I'm sure. Also, it could save people from suffering through therapy when the odds are that Erbitux won't work for them. Erbitux shouldn't be made to look like a poison with no redeeming value. To the contrary, it's been used to make miracles. The article should just drive the point home that Erbitux needs to be handled more precisely and with a great deal of care. A spotlight should be shown on all of the known problems. The article should educate the medical community and the general public. It is never prudent to create a panic. However, it is in the interest of public safety to keep events such as John's fatal reaction from being marginalized.

Sorry, I haven't quite reached the bottom of my anger about this one. Anger's a good thing. There's nothing like anger to galvanize a person into getting some changes made.