In the article entitled ‘Radio veteran needs €500,000 to beat leukaemia’ (January 12), it was stated that a “centre, based in Houston, Texas, is interested in offering Mr Farrugia treatment. He flew to the US earlier this week but the financial burden is huge”.

How magnanimous of this Houston centre that has expressed its “interest in offering Mr Farrugia treatment” that comes with the €500,000 price tag.

To put it very crudely, if someone were to spend €500,000 on a Lamborghini he would expect it to work and to run and if not would get his money back. But I suppose if one is in the cancer treatment industry, apparently one can sell a bottle of doctor good for €500,000 and keep the money if the medicine fails. Good business to be in.

My heart truly goes out to Terry Farrugia and others like him for the terrible ordeal they and their families go through and the staggering costs they face in attempts to be cured.

In a February 2018 article entitled ‘Cancer is a curse but also a growth market for investors’, The Economist states that between 2012 and 2016 the global costs of cancer-related treatments grew from $91 billion to $113 billion, according to IQVIA, a health-data firm. They are expected to rise to $147 billion by 2021.

Apparently one man’s curse is another company’s fortune.

Yet, after all these years and billions of euros spent by patients, governments and donors, we seem to be no closer to finding cures.

Such failure is a global curse, yet again, a curse that turns out to be a staggering fortune for companies like this one in Houston, “expressing an interest... in offering Mr Farrugia treatment”.

How sad and how tragic.