A massive drug shortage in the US has left thousands of children battling with cancer while scrambling to find life-saving medications.
Parents in search of drugs for their children are being turned away by hospitals, only told to wait for supplies to be replenished — which could take another year.
Drug shortages hit an all time high in 2023, with 309 reported according to US pharmacists — also marking a 30 percent rise on 2021.
And data also estimates that eight out of ten of the most commonly used pediatric cancer drugs have been in shortage over the last decade.
The shortage is said to be due to a lack of financial incentives among pharma companies, because manufacturing these drugs often does not lead to big profits.
Access to these limited drugs can be 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 mom from Florida, learned of the drug shortage first-hand when her then-nine-year-old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia and the hospital ran out of the $10 drug she needed for treatment
Pediatric cancer medications are 90 percent more likely to go into shortage than other medications, reports say, and stay in shortage 30 percent longer on average.
Eighty-three percent of oncologists already say they have been unable to prescribe their preferred chemotherapy drug to patients because of the shortages, according to a previous study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Methotrexate sodium, a chemotherapy drug used for leukemia, brain tumors and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is among the pediatric cancer drugs most commonly in shortage.
Leucovorin, used to treat the side-effects of methotrexate such as nausea and sores in the mouth, is also commonly in shortage.
Although rare, about 16,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in the US every year — with the children being just ten years old on average.
Leukemias and cancers of the brain and central nervous system are the most common forms of the disease diagnosed.
Among those to be caught up in the shortages was nine-year-old Abby Bray from Tampa, Florida, who was told her leukemia was 90 percent likely to be cured, but only if she could find her treatment.
Her mother Laura told USA Today: ‘I had no answers for her when she asked me if she was going to die if she didn’t have her medicine.
‘All I could say is that, “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 alternate drug, but that drug would affect her fertility, require additional surgeries and would affect her treatment for the following many, many months.
Ms Bray said the average waiting list for the drug her daughter needed was 15 months, but a ‘patient fighting for their life does not have 15 months’
‘Most importantly, this alteration in her treatment plan jeopardized Brannon’s enrollment in her clinical trial. We couldn’t believe tis was the only choice.’
Most of the drugs are generic medicines, meaning they are cheap but manufacturers make little profit on them — which can lead to production being discontinued.
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Nearly all — 96 percent — of shortages are caused by issues within human control, such as manufacturing and supply and demand issues.
Both Abby and Brannon did eventually get their medications following a panicked ring round of a number of 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 who work to find medications across the country to ship to patients in need.
The non-profit’s Drug Shortage Crisis Hotline has had a 100 percent success rate over the last four years of linking child cancer patients to the drugs they need.
It can be contacted on +1 813 501 7742, or via submitting a message on the organization’s website.
Abby, now 14 years old, is healthy and cancer-free.
Another factor driving the shortage is America’s reliance on material from China and India to make nearly all medicines used in emergency care.
Foreign manufacturers registered with the FDA more than doubled between 2010 and 2015.
The FDA already has limited oversight into drug manufacturing, but handing over those responsibilities to foreign entities further complicates the process because the US has no insight into overseas manufacturing, quality or supply chain issues.
