A Killer On The Loose

Every 6 hours, a killer takes another life. Four times every day, this ruthless and heartless maniac steals the life of an innocent child. Yet, no alarm sounds. No all points bulletin is issued. No man-hunt is mounted. No warrant for arrest.

If an individual person was perpetrating these heinous crimes, there would be a response. Police would swarm. Government officials would demand action. The public would cry out for justice.

But we plod on in our daily lives and there is silence - a quiet apathy to the ravaging damage to families; to parents; to children.

Every 6 hours, a child dies from cancer. During your long day at work, likely 2 kids succumb and are unable to fight on. While you sleep tonight, another family has a precious gift taken from them, and the world is robbed of what miracles they might have contributed to humanity.

And yet, we have a system that could, with proper focus and intent, produce justice; could bring about an end to the travesty occurring in the lives of so many children. But it sits idle, focusing elsewhere.

I generally believe in a free market - but the "market" of drug development is crippled by the financials of childhood cancer. While so many die and could use new therapies, new drugs, new treatments - the numbers just don't add up.

New drugs cost hundreds of millions of dollars (on average $800 million) to bring to market - and drug manufacturers are generally run by smart business people. If there are only a few hundred or even a few thousand people a year who will end up "buying" their product, they know that they will likely not recoup their huge investment. So, bright minds in the medical research industry focus on diseases of the the masses, ignoring the few.

Only 4% of all government-funded cancer research focuses on childhood cancer. That means we put 96% of all of our cancer research funding into extending lives of people who have had much more chance to live. It sounds callous, but we are spending a majority of our money researching treatments for the old, and allowing the young to die.

The products that Harper is receiving for her Wilms treatment were introduced in 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1983. That means her newest therapy was introduced 30 years ago. How far have other cancer therapies progressed in the last 30 years?

This demon haunts the rooms of the most innocent, and we sit back and let it happen, without outcry that reflects the enormity of the injustice.

There's a killer on the loose. Someone, somewhere needs to come up with a way to stop it.