{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/this-drug-costs-84000", "This drug costs $84,000", "2014-12-03", "2014", "2014-12", "Independent", "House", "VT", "Bernard Sanders", "S000033", "www.sanders.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "This drug costs $84,000\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tAnd there\u2019s nothing the US health-care system can do to stop it.\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t By:\u00a0 Sarah Kliff \n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, December 3, 2014\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\tThe first thing Philip Mason noticed was the hair loss. The 73-year-old retiree, a former computer programmer, began shedding hair from his arms, legs, everywhere on his body. \"It just all came right off,\" he said.\r\nAfter the hair loss came weight loss; Mason dropped from 150 to 125 pounds. He felt weak and sick. Mason, who is blind and already used a white cane to get around, began having falls. He switched to a walker for more stability.\r\nMason went to the doctor and discovered he had\u00a0Hepatitis C.\u00a0He had contracted the disease through sex with an ex-boyfriend. And when he received his diagnosis three years ago, the prognosis wasn't good. He already had renal insufficiency, a chronic condition in which the kidneys become increasingly weak and unable to process urine. After the diagnosis of Hepatitis C, which weakens liver function, Mason's doctor recommended a transplant.\r\nMason declined. \"I told my doctor I was already old, and worried about what my quality of life would be like after the transplant,\" he said.\r\nSo Mason lived with his Hepatitis C, the hair loss, the weight loss, the walker, and the falls, until this past February. That's when his doctor at the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, DC, asked if he wanted to try a new Hepatitis C drug called Sovaldi. It had just come on the market a few months earlier. In initial trials, Sovaldi used with another medication cured at least\u00a094 percent\u00a0of Hepatitis C cases during a 12-week treatment course.\r\nTreatment would not be invasive like a liver transplant. He would just need to take Sovaldi and one other medication once a day for three months. Mason agreed.\r\nContinue reading here.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/this-drug-costs-84000"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.485662069171667, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}