note: this post was adapted from a college research assignment.
My three-year-old daughter is one of over 10,000 who was diagnosed with Childhood Cancer this year and will receive chemicals like Vincristine as part of their treatment. These drugs are a blessing and a curse – treating Cancer for these kids comes at a very high cost on their quality of life and life expectancy; but it could be better if Childhood Cancer research wasn’t desperately under-funded.
What is Vincristine?
Vincristine is a neurotoxic poison that stops cells in the body from dividing properly. It was originally researched as a diabetes treatment but is now used in chemotherapy to treat many types of Cancer. Since many types of Cancer cells spread by dividing rapidly, but also die rapidly, inhibiting their ability to divide helps destroy the cancer.
What are the side effects?
Unfortunately, Vincristine can’t distinguish Cancer cells from normal ones, so healthy cells are also destroyed – especially those which divide rapidly, such as hair. This is why most Cancer patients experience complete hair loss. But that’s not the worse of Vincristine’s side effects.
Other side effects include hyponatremia (low sodium), severe constipation, and worst of all, peripheral neuropathy. Peripheral neuropathy is nerve damage that results in pain and loss of sensation in the feet and sometimes hands. In about 20% of cases, the damage is permanent.
Are there any substitutes?
Vincristine is absolutely lifesaving and has helped increase Cancer survival rates. However, it’s been a full 60 years since Vincristine was approved as a chemotherapy drug. 60 years and there is still no safer and less harmful treatment available for the many thousands of people who will be diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in the U.S. this year (American Cancer Society, 2023).
The vast majority of children who survive Cancer will suffer serious long-term health problems and a 30% shorter life, largely because of the side effects of chemotherapy drugs such as Vincristine (Lagner Et al., 2017). But it does not have to stay this way.
Why aren’t there better treatments?
It’s very likely that better therapies for Childhood Cancer can be developed with modern technology and knowledge. However, the funding simply isn’t available to do the research. Childhood Cancer receives less than one half of one percent of the total U.S. Federal Budget allocation.
The U.S. paid a combined $15 Billion to just the top five federal subsidy recipients – all private corporations (Federal Reserve, 2023), but only $250 million to Childhood Cancer programs (Good Jobs First, 2023) in 2021. That’s 60 times less funding and not even half of what it typically costs to bring a single new medicine to market.
We are severely under-investing in the work to find better treatments for the second-leading killer of children in our country.
How can you help?
If you think the 10,000 – 15,000 children who are diagnosed with Cancer every year deserve better than outdated and under-funded treatments, please consider donating directly to the Children’s Oncology Group. COG is leading the charge to modernize treatment so that kids like mine can not only survive Cancer, but enjoy a normal quality of life afterwards. Donate | Children’s Oncology Group Foundation (networkforgood.org)
References
American Cancer Society. (2023). Key statistics for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). American Cancer Society. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://www.cancer.org/cancer/acute-lymphocytic-leukemia/about/key-statistics.html
Federal Reserve. (2023, February 23). Federal government current expenditures: Subsidies. FRED. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B096RC1Q027SBEA
Good Jobs First. (2023). Federal Subsidy Tracker. Good Jobs First. Retrieved March 14, 2023, from https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/summary.php?company_op=starts&subsidy_level=federal%2Bonly&subsidy_op=%3E&face_loan_op=%3E&sub_year%5B%5D=2021
Langer, T., Grabow, D., Steinmann, D., Wörmann, B., & Calaminus, G. (2017). Late effects and long-term follow-up after cancer in childhood. Oncology Research and Treatment, 40(12), 746–750. https://doi.org/10.1159/000484936