Why is the funding so low relative to oncology research in general? Does the FDA not allow pediatric cancer therapies to be developed as orphaned drugs or is the growing nature of a child really make it that difficult to target pediatric cancers? Is it because cancer is far more common in the elderly who have much more political leverage?
I imagine there are multiple reasons why developing therapies for children is more difficult, but what would be the adequate level of funding? Less than 0.25% of cancer deaths correspond to patients younger than 20 when diagnosed (and I guess the low incidence is one of the reasons why developing new treatments is difficult).
It is 100% about the numbers. 43 children in America are diagnosed with cancer everyday. 5 children die everyday and it is the number one cause of death for children. 40,000 children every year are being treated. BUT that pales to just lung cancer with 610 diagnosis per day and 427 deaths per day.
I still say that is these are not a good reasons to keep the funding so low.
1) Treatments for Children are immediately beneficial to adults BUT treatments for adults would take at least 7 years but the cast majority they would be unlikely to be of any benefit to children.
2) Treatments for Children will also have less side effects and fewer long term side effects.
3) Children are at the age of around 6 years old when diagnosed and have 60 years+ of a positive life. 2% of lung cancer patients are under 45 years old and average age is 70 on the day of diagnosis.
4) Ethical: If you had a choice for your life to be saved or a child's life but only one of you can have could live what would you chose? If you saw a child about to get hit by a car but it was unclear if you intervene if you would make it would you just stand to the side? I think most of us would hope we would choose the kids. Why are we not doing this when we can actually sit down and think about it?
If it is all about the numbers, can anyone tell me the what is the threshold that a government is willing to spend to save a human life? What is the base threshold and multipliers for e.g. a US embassy-employee in Libya or a kid in Wyoming? I am sure insurance companies have some figures.
