dr. rachel marcus, cardiologist and medical director of the latin american society of chagas. doctor, daisy explained a bit but can you give us a very brief layman s understanding of what the disease is? sure. chagas skis is the long-term consequences of a parasitic infection of the heart. it was traditionally thought of as being a disease of rural poverty in central and south america. the parasite causes an acute infection generally in a child. and then for anywhere between 15 and 30 years patients will live with the parasite in them and then suffer long-term damage to the heart and to the esophagus and the gastrointestinal system. how is the medical community responding to the idea that the one treatment, the main treatment for it, could increase so exponentially in cost? well, you ve asked a great question. one of the problems in the united states dealing with chagas disease is that the
it. they ve been pretty transparent about that. but it is just this whole process and this whole strategy of this niche group of pharmaceutical players that has people really scratching their heads on what to do next. doctor, if this treatment becomes so expensive that impoverished patients can t get it, what is the alternative? there is a second-line medication. unfortunately, you have to take it for longer and the risk of serious side effects is much higher. so it is really not a very palatable alternative. we thank you very much for bringing us this information, dr. rachel marcus in washington, d.c. coming up, the new surge of children crossing the border. is this the beginning of a new migrant crisis? that s next. ok, we re here.
it was the last debate of the year. there s only one more debate remaining before primary elections kick off with the iowa caucuses in february. so the candidates needed to make it count, especially if you re bernie sanders. if you re bernie sanders, those three hours of exposure on network television were a chance to make up for the media s collective meh when it comes to covering your campaign. a recent analysis of election coverage by the tindall report which tracks network nicely news programs found bernie sanders received just ten minutes out of 857 minutes of campaign coverage in 2015. compare that to 234 minutes for donald trump, and 113 for hillary clinton. well, this week may have been a reminder to the sanders campaign to be careful what you wish for because those minutes of coverage increase exponentially when the sanders campaign became the center of a good old-fashioned political controversy this week. his coverage went from no news to bad news with the revelat