Last month, I wrote an article about EDSS students participating in the fundraising event Relay for Life. Their goal is to raise $100,000 for cancer research. Such a substantial amount of money, and yet I think it’s going to the wrong place.
Recently, I’ve been noticing a pattern of articles about cancer patients in local newspapers. While students raise money for cancer research, cancer patients are dying because they can’t afford the drugs that have already been created and work.
Take Cambridge woman, Judy Pope, as written about in the March 17, 2010 edition of The Waterloo Region Record, for example. For five years she was on medication that helped keep her cancer at bay.  Unfortunately, her husband’s insurance provider got switched, changing the coverage which helped pay for her medicine. Pope had to cease taking her drugs, because they couldn’t afford to pay $3,200 a month for them.
When she applied for Ontario’s program to help people with prescription drug costs, they denied her application. And before her daughter could even try to help her pay for the drugs, Pope’s health declined drastically, then she died.
What is the price of a life? Even those who have 80-per cent coverage can still end up paying $15,000 a year for medication. And those who don’t have coverage have to hope they fall under the provincial government’s criteria to cover the cost of the drug they need.
In an article posted on CTV’s website, I learned of Dan Childerhose from Dorchester, Ontario. Not wanting a relapse of rare blood cancer, multiple myeloma, his doctor suggested he take thalidomide, a drug only available in Canada. Unfortunately, the drug requires a special access permit, and while Childerhose met the criteria to obtain the drug, he couldn’t afford to pay up to $4,000 monthly for it.
Pharmaceutical companies claim that prescription drugs prices are high to cover the research and development costs. What I don’t understand, however, is how the price of thalidomide could be so high, when it’s been around since the 1950s.
Once given to treat nausea for pregnant women, it ended in thousands of children being born with birth defects, and as a result was banned around the world. In later years though, it’s been discovered to treat leprosy, childhood leukemia and multiple myeloma.
The industry says it costs slightly over a billion dollars to develop a product and make it available, but critics believe that figure to be bogus and inflated far beyond the actual costs. Most likely it only costs $100-million per new pill. Drug companies are one of the most profitable industries in the United States. It’s believed that drug prices are incredibly high because of the nature of the market. Sick people are desperate. Either pay for the drug, or suffer the consequences. In Pope’s case, the consequence was death, and the future for Childerhose is quite foggy.     
Just this past April, $12.6 million was given to scientists throughout Ontario for research projects and high-end equipment to aid in uncovering new diagnostic tools and treatments for cancer. And in November, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) was given $6 million, adding to their total of $83 million since 2002.
Drugs have already been developed that prolong the lives of cancer patients. So why should we send more money for research, when the drugs that have been developed are too expensive for patients to afford anyways? The money should go directly to the patients.
A leader needs to take up this challenge by setting up a Cancer Aid Trust Fund to assist stricken cancer patients. The objective in establishing the Trust Fund would be to give financial assistance to cancer patients who are unable to afford their medical expenses.
It is unjust and cruel to tell people that there is a drug available, which will stop their cancer from spreading and keep them alive, but it will cost them more than $8,000 monthly to receive it. Patients need to focus on their health, not worry about how they’re going to pay for their medication.
A report done by the Canadian Cancer Society shows that 1 in 12 Canadians face destructive drug costs, outlined as more than three per cent of a household’s net income. The report also shows that around 50 per cent of the newly developed cancer drugs are taken at home, and about three-quarters of those drugs cost over $20,000 a year.
High costs can be devastating for cancer patients who don’t have adequate insurance protection. For example, in 2009 a year’s worth of treatment for lung cancer could cost almost $20,000, and stomach cancer could cost anywhere from $37,350 to $74,490. Kidney cancer expenses could be over $60,000 for the year, while those with breast cancer could spend up to $35,000, and treatments for myeloma could be anywhere from $30,000 to $131,765.
In fact, with the more recent cancer drugs, a single course of treatment costs $65,000. That’s almost as high as the average annual income of Canadians, meaning some people don’t even make close to that much money a year. As a result, one in five cancer patients will spend all of their life savings to get the treatment they need, and over a million people with cancer are foregoing treatment because they simply can’t afford it.
Even those who are insured, such as cancer patient Keith Blessington, are having financial difficulties. He was over $70,000 in debt struggling to pay for his care, and there is now a good chance he may lose his home.
What makes matters even worse is that the cost of cancer drugs are rising at a swift speed. The cost of treatment for colorectal cancer, for instance, has risen from $300 in the 1980s, to $10,000 in the 1990s, and to $20,000 plus in this decade.
To top things off, whether you live or die depends on what type of cancer you have, even if there are drugs out there that can cure you. Kent Pankow from Edmonton has a brain tumour. If he had lung cancer, breast cancer, or colon cancer his treatments of $4,555, done two times a month, would be covered by Alberta’s version of OHIP. Unfortunately, he doesn’t and even though the drug he needs, Avastin, is working, he can’t pay for it.
The federal government needs to take action and amend this patchwork problem of drug coverage in Canada. Money has to stop going to research. The drugs are already out there, but they’re expensive. Cancer patients are filing bankruptcy and dying because of it. They’re the ones who need the money. Not later, but right now.