A response from our article on kidney issues

The article we wrote last Tuesday about issues relating to kidney disease got a lot of response from our readers even as far away as Butuan City. But I can only reprint two letters emailed to me. Here is the first one.

“We read, with extreme interest your column last week where you wrote that you are a candidate for kidney transplantation. We presume that you have End Stage Renal Failure, and that you must be on regular dialysis while awaiting for a kidney donation. We admire your courage; we are at awe on how you continue to be an active columnist producing excellent articles in your regular column. I write for and in behalf of the Caraga Kidney Alliance, hoping that you can help spread the information about the sad plight of kidney failure patients on dialysis today.

We are a non-profit, non-government advocacy organization of volunteers based in Butuan City dedicated to the promotion of early detection, prevention, and treatment of End Stage Renal Disease or Chronic Kidney Failure, and of the conditions and diseases causing it. Public awareness of the plight of patients with the disease and its devastating impact on them, their families, the community and the country as a whole. Universal access by all patients to the treatment of Chronic Kidney Failure, including Hemodialysis, Peritoneal Dialysis, and Kidney Transplantation, so that no Filipino may be denied treatment notwithstanding their economic status in life. From Caraga Kidney Alliance a Committee of Ivory Charities of Butuan City. Room 104 M. J. Santos Hospital, Montilla Blvd. Butuan City.

The second letter emailed to me is fascinating as it comes from Los Angeles, California. Here’s the letter in full. “Dear Mr. Avila, I might be able to help you. In 1993, I found that ACE was a “master” disease gene, if you will. ACE, as I’m sure you know, stands for “angiotensin I-converting enzyme,” and is inhibited by ACE inhibitors. They’re widely used for high blood pressure.

It turns out that a specific one, quinapril, at higher than conventional doses, can reverse chronic kidney disease due to diabetes or high blood pressure (1). In other words, it should be possible to prevent 90 percent of dialysis worldwide. Although I visited the Philippines twice about a decade ago, I couldn’t find anybody who wanted to get rid of dialysis (2).

I’d be happy to try to help you buy some more time off dialysis. Then, perhaps, you could tell your readers how they, too, could avoid dialysis. Whoever breaks the story, I’m convinced, will win honors and awards, since it will literally save lives—about 300 a day in the United States alone. Best regards David W. Moskowitz, MD. CEO & Chief Medical Officer GenoMed, Inc. 3511 N 55^th Ave. Hollywood, Fl. 33021.” Unfortunately, I’m unable to verify what is written here. I need to sit down with medical researchers on why many Filipinos are suffering from chronic kidney failure.

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A few days ago on Aug. 29, just a day before the celebration of Araw ng mga Bayani, 15 Army soldiers were killed during their incursion in Patikul, Sulu in their hot pursuit operations against the Abu Sayyaf. A day prior to that day, we learned that 22 members of the Abu Sayyaf were killed in encounters with not a single loss to the Army. Clearly what is happening in Basilan and in Sulu is a serious battle by the Philippine military and the Abu Sayyaf terror group, which is taking its toll on Filipino lives.

I’m sure that Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte will be attending the wake of these fallen soldiers. Apparently the President has been attending a lot of wakes of fallen soldiers, which is a sharp contrast to the previous occupant in Malacañang who could not even attend the arrival ceremonies of the fallen Elite 44 Special Action Force (SAF) whom he sent to their untimely deaths in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. How times have really changed.

Now our soldiers have found a true Commander-in-Chief in the person of Pres. Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte who even offered the Presidential plane to be refurbished and reconfigured into an Air Ambulance so that the wounded soldiers can be flown immediately out of the battlefield and into a hospital and yes, the President bewailed that Army hospitals do not even have an MRI machines, which he promised to also change.

But in the meantime, like it or not, the Duterte Administration is waging a war on two fronts… one waged by our soldiers in the mountain fastness of Sulu Province against the Abu Sayyaf and the war against illegal drugs continues to be wage with an alleged drug lord named Melvin Odicta, Sr. and his wife shot dead as they disembarked from a vessel in the Port of Malay, Aklan. We gathered enough info about this man who apparently had a previous conviction. So the question is…was he killed by the authorities or the police or his potential rivals in the drug trade. Well this is really one for the books… and we hope a thorough investigation would be called so we can get into the bottom of this senseless death, a casualty of this war vs. illegal drugs!

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