Money or Children? Don't Let Pharmaceutical Companies Decide

A crisis is facing pediatric cancer and is plaguing many patients and families. There is a nationwide shortage of a critical chemotherapy called “Vincristine” which is the backbone of treatment for most childhood cancers. Teva, one of the only two pharmaceutical companies who produce Vincristine, made a business decision to discontinue the drug. They discontinued production in order to save money and apply it to other adult medications for cheaper.  As a result of this business decision many children with cancer in America are going without treatment, thus, leading to death or progression of cancer. Pediatric oncologists are now having to ration the doses of Vincristine. They are faced with making the difficult decision of deciding which child will receive the next life-saving dose of this chemotherapy. It is a life or death situation for many and there is no appropriate substitute for this drug. It cannot be replaced due to its strength, how well it works, and its success rate. This disrupts and delays treatment for many and is threatening pediatric oncology. Furthermore, because of the physiology and genetics of cancer, it is fast growing and can easily overcome many other cells, organs, body functions, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to slow it down or delay the growth of cancer as much as possible-- but that is impossible in some cases without Vincristine. I argue that this negligence should not be occurring in a first world, developed country with modern medicine. The lives of children should not come down to a business deal to save money. Vincristine treats over 50% of the pediatric cancer cases and only 3% of the adult cancers. Unfortunately, this is the reality of our health care system, in that some pharmaceutical companies are valuing money above people and their lives. It is not only reflective in this case, but also the increased price of insulin and other drugs on the market.  Although this may not sound very pertinent or important to some because they can argue to replace it with another chemotherapy, that does not necessarily work in cancer treatment therapy. 

            Although cancers can be organized and filtered into names unifying their characteristics, they all differ and develop in different and specialized ways. No cancer is identical to another. One mistake in your genome can potentially result in metastases. Therefore, you cannot always treat them the same, hence different regimes and treatment cycles. Vincristine, though very intense and aggressive can target a handful of the fast developing cancers.  Many pediatric patients need this drug because they are not “responding” to other chemotherapies, or this one may be the only one aggressive enough to conquer the beast. 

            I was fortunate enough to receive Vincristine during my cancer treatment when I was 16 and 17 years old. Although there was not a shortage of this drug during my treatment, I could not imagine my life being compared to another’s. This drug, paired with 8 others, saved my life. It was by far the most aggressive, and resulted in many long term side effects that still trouble me, but I would much rather deal with the side effects than not have the chance to live. As I read this article, I sit here contemplating and simply cannot understand how my life could have been saved at the cost of another child—and all as a result of a money saving scheme from pharmaceutical companies. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/health/cancer-drug-shortage.html