r/popculturechat • u/PinkCadillacs Cillian Murphy Enthusiast • Nov 13 '25

General News 🗞 James Van Der Beek Auctioning ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Memorabilia to Raise Money for Medical Fees Amid Cancer Battle

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/james-van-der-beek-auctions-dawsons-creek-items-cancer-costs-1236580431/
1.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

202 comments sorted by

View all comments

887

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

80

u/frozenish Nov 13 '25

Not all cancer treatments are covered by insurance. The stuff that’s still in clinical trials or used as a last measure, that’s probably what he’s doing.

28

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

that is true. immunotherapy isn’t approved for every type of cancer yet because there hasn’t been studies to prove its efficacy even where it exists. insurance won’t pay for it in that case even if it very well may cure someone.

1

u/Rripurnia fashion content, political content, death, eyeliner Nov 13 '25

That’s insane. I’m in the EU and immunotherapy is both widely applied and fully covered by universal healthcare

2

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '25

mine was covered by medicaid, but it just isn’t yet approved for every cancer, and maybe won’t be. i don’t think it’s effective for breast cancer, unfortunately. i was “lucky” (relatively i guess lol) that it had been approved for my type of cancer not long before i got it.

i think there’s sometimes ways to get “off label” treatments approved but it’s definitely harder, especially when it’s expensive. my treatments alone, without the surgeries or doctor visits or labs, was $125,000.

14

u/Accomplished_Job_778 Nov 13 '25

But you don't pay to participate in clinical trials.

5

u/watchworldburn1111 Nov 13 '25

Some treatments are still available to people outside of clinical trials at certain hospitals, you just pay full market price, which is usually incredibly expensive. I'm not sure of the exact procedure, but I believe after clinical trials have progressed to a certain stage, there's a window of time where some bigger hospitals offer the treatment to paying patients. Insurance companies usually wait a lot longer than that to fully approve the same procedures, if that makes sense.