State Rep. Buddy Carter had some very interesting words to say regarding the recent Montel Williams visit to Savannah.

Most notably, that as an MS sufferer and a beneficiary of the miracles of modern drug therapy, Williams should have answered the question put before him that caused him to lash out at the young intern: Do you think pharmaceutical companies would be discouraged from research and development if their profits were restricted?

Lots of people get mad when faced with a question they know the answer to but don’t want to fess up to.

And we all pretty well know the answer to that question: Heck yeah!

Of course they wouldn’t do as much research and development if their profits were restricted. It goes hand in hand with saying that if their profits were restricted, they probably wouldn’t be able to do as much research and development. But what if, through their R&D, they were able to come up with a cure for something like, say, cancer. Or MS.

Would they hold on to that magic formula because they wouldn’t make much money off it? Or would they hold it out there like a hook baited with gold, so the restrictions would be removed? Even without drug companies being restricted profit-wise, would it be something they would keep locked in an underground vault, waiting until enough people were suffering that they could charge astronomical sums for it?

There is so much money to be made off the suffering of human beings. Hospitals know it, drug companies know it — the cost of health care is only important to those people who make a living off it. They don’t care who can’t afford it, but they sure target those who can.

I have health insurance, but it doesn’t cover the cost of any medications I would need if I had a debilitating illness.

And of course, my magic cure for anything is a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll, but that’s just me.

Hubs’ brother has MS. He was diagnosed about 15 years ago. His symptoms are not severe, but how do we know what severe is? It is only determined by the person who is afflicted.

He is a master carpenter, so he needs the use of his hands on a daily basis. Some days he cannot use them. He bikes almost daily to keep fit, participates in races whenever he can to keep his muscles toned and his blood flowing.

Some days, and it’s rare, he is sick to his stomach for no reason other than the illness. He suffers from headaches, weakness, and other maladies brought on by MS. But he strives to get to work every day.

He almost never talks about his illness. He doesn’t like to think about it or talk about because it is too depressing, so he acts on it. He stays active, and he has searched for his own magic bullet, finding it, in of all places, Mexico.

With there being absolutely no restrictions on anything down in Mexico (except for the people down there being able to make a living), he found a doctor who has helped to ease his maladies with an injection of a drug made from goat’s blood. This treatment is also being administered in England.

One thing about it though, it ain’t cheap.

Yes, people do go to great lengths to get the help they need, if they know there is something out there that can, or might, help them. If they have to forego other luxuries in order to get it, they do.

Why isn’t this treatment available in the United States? Maybe because it doesn’t require a lot of laboratory work. It’s not synthetic. Yes, there are some filtrations and other things that the goat’s blood has to go through in order to get it to the medicinal stage where its used, and yes, it costs brother-in-law a hefty sum — but he thinks it is working.

That’s the reason why he jumps through hoops and over barrels to pay for it. It makes him feel better.

The basic theory behind the goat’s blood treatment is that goats almost never get sick. They eat anything, carpet, tin cans, rubber tires, whatever, and never suffer from disease.

It made sense to someone, someone who said, ‘hmm ... maybe goats have the answer,’ and looked into why they never got sick.

That sort of research and development is just too simple for drug companies. And they know they can’t make a lot of money off that treatment right now, because it is so cost prohibitive.

When more and more people start demanding it here in the United States, that’s when you’ll hear about it. The more people that are willing to pay for it, the more available it will become.

In the meantime, I think I’m gonna buy a few goats.

They’ll be a hot commodity in about five years, and they’ll keep my yard nice and trim.