A massive drug shortage in the US has left thousands of children battling cancer while searching for life-saving drugs.
Parents seeking medicine for their children are being turned away by hospitals and only told to wait until supplies are replenished – which could take another year.
Drug shortages reached a record high in 2023, with 309 reported by U.S. pharmacists – also marking a 30 percent increase from 2021.
And data also estimates that over the past decade there has been a shortage of eight out of 10 of the most commonly used childhood cancer drugs.
The shortage is said to be due to a lack of financial incentives among pharmaceutical companies, because the production of these drugs often does not lead to large profits.
Access to these limited medicines can mean the difference between life and death for patients, some as young as nine years old, who fear they are ‘going to die’.
Laura Bray, a Florida mother, learned of the drug shortage firsthand when her then-nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and the hospital no longer needed $10 worth of drugs for treatment.
Childhood cancer drugs are 90 percent more likely to be in short supply than other medications, reports say, and remain in short supply an average of 30 percent longer.
Eighty-three percent of oncologists already say they cannot prescribe their chemotherapy drug of choice to patients because of the shortages, according to an earlier study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Methotrexate sodium, a chemotherapy drug used for leukemia, brain tumors and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is one of the childhood cancer drugs most often in short supply.
There is also often a deficiency of leucovorin, which is used to treat the side effects of methotrexate, such as nausea and mouth ulcers.
Although rare, approximately 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year in the US – with the average age of children being only ten years old.
Leukemias and cancers of the brain and central nervous system are the most common forms of the disease diagnosed.
Among those affected by the shortages was nine-year-old Abby Bray of Tampa, Florida, who was told there was a 90 percent chance of a cure for her leukemia, but only if she could find a treatment.
Her mother Laura told her USA today: ‘I had no answers for her when she asked me if she would die if she didn’t have her medication.
“All I could say is, ‘We’re going to try to find it. Sometimes extraordinary things happen when you try.’
In another case, Brannon Warn-Johnston, 15, who has bone cancer, found her vital chemotherapy disrupted when a hospital ran out of the drug she needed.
Her family said: ‘They said they would give her an alternative medicine, but that medicine would affect her fertility, require additional surgeries and her treatment for the next many, many months.
Mrs Bray said the average waiting list for the drug her daughter needed was 15 months, but a ‘patient fighting for his life doesn’t have 15 months’
“Most importantly, this change in her treatment plan jeopardized Brannon’s participation in her clinical trial. We couldn’t believe this was the only choice.”
Most drugs are generic, meaning they are cheap but manufacturers make little profit on them – which can lead to production being halted.
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Almost all shortages (96 percent) are caused by problems within human control, such as production and supply and demand problems.
Both Abby and Brannon eventually received their medications after a panicked tour of several hospitals for supplies.
In 2019, Abby’s mother Laura launched Angels for Change, a volunteer-run group working to end the drug crisis through advocacy and building a resilient supply chain, as well as a network of healthcare professionals, suppliers and people working to finding medicines around the world. country to send to patients in need.
Abby, now 14 years old, is healthy and cancer-free.
Another factor causing the shortage is America’s dependence on materials from China and India to produce almost all of the drugs used in emergency rooms.
The number of foreign manufacturers registered with the FDA more than doubled between 2010 and 2015.
The FDA already has limited oversight of drug manufacturing, but transferring these responsibilities to foreign entities further complicates the process because the U.S. lacks visibility into overseas manufacturing, quality or supply chain issues.