It’s officially September, which is recognized as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It commemorates pediatric cancer patients, survivors and medical professionals with fundraisers, local community action and gold ribbons.
Miami University is no stranger to this kind of community work. Stroll down Slant Walk or through Armstrong, and you’ll see tables selling baked goods, displaying Venmo donation codes or handing out free items. They’re usually for philanthropic campaigns within fraternity and sorority life, such as Delta Delta Delta’s historic partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Similarly, there are often charity 5Ks within the Oxford community, like the annual Jacob Butze Memorial 5K.
College students have to raise money for these causes because oftentimes, those in power do not help enough. These campaigns seek to spread awareness and raise money for people affected.
Pediatric cancer is chronically underfunded and under-researched compared to nearly every type of adult cancer. Federal research funding for all childhood cancers combined is just $280 million out of the $7.2 billion cancer research budget, according to the Kate Amato Foundation. For reference, breast cancer research receives $1.8 billion.
A 2018 study published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that “pharmaceutical companies have fewer economic incentives to invest in pediatric oncology drug development [than other forms of cancer].” There are about 15,000 annual pediatric cancer diagnoses, compared to roughly 2 million annual cancer diagnoses in adults, according to the American Association of Cancer Research.
Since there are more people with other forms of cancer, more treatment can be sold, thus yielding a larger profit margin. Because of this, private pharmaceutical companies rarely fund pediatric trials on their own.
Nearly all funding for pediatric cancer research comes from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Only 4% of the NCI’s budget is allocated to pediatric cancer, which seems fair, considering its 1% share of diagnoses; however, basing funding on diagnosis percentages is flawed logic.
When pediatric cancer enters remission, the average years of life saved are much greater than when other forms of cancer enter remission. Children get back the rest of their life, potentially 70 years or more, while curing an adult typically gives them 10-15 more years of life, according to Children’s Cancer Cause.
All of this leaves us with a fundamental choice in priority: Either the state steps in, using its power to directly fund research and mandate pediatric trials for drug companies, or it stays the same as it always is. The people are left to do all they can, which unfortunately is much less than the government could do.
This issue of privatized responsibility is not unique to pediatric cancer. It’s a common pattern in public policy.
For the environment, we’re told industrial polluters can’t be regulated, and the burden rather falls on us to stop using plastic straws or focus on reducing our individual “carbon footprints” — a term popularized and pushed by the oil giant, British Petroleum, also known as BP.
For people with disabilities, states claim they can’t afford basic support programs, such as a recent incident in Maryland where state budget cuts limited existing disability access. Yet again, the state’s burden is shifted onto the common folk. Oftentimes, this leaves families to rely on extraordinary measures, such as GoFundMe campaigns, for proper medical care.
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People are left selling $2 cookies to fund $1 billion clinical trials because the market won't do it, and the state refuses to step in.
This isn’t to put down the work of these community members; these are honorable pursuits, and they deserve to be recognized.
The issue lies in how the U.S. government promotes private charity as a moral cop-out for its own institutional duty, which it refuses to fulfill. While private charity is morally commendable, it should not be twisted to guilt-trip people into accepting it as a total replacement for the state’s action.
The primary obligation of governance is not merely to oversee and foster economic growth, but to protect the inherent dignity of human life, especially the most vulnerable lives.
Private industry has an important role in society, but its economic metrics shouldn’t decide which lives are worth saving.
When market incentives fail to protect the lives of children, the public authority has a clear and moral duty to act, ensuring corporate practices serve the common good of the people. Neither higher profits, nor larger gross domestic product numbers, nor greater shareholder value matter if we trample our morals in the process.
The next time you see a campus fundraiser, honor the people behind it, but remember to direct your indignation at the authority that actually made their extra work necessary in the first place.
Jacob Van Riper is a senior double-majoring in business analytics and marketing, and has minors in psychological science and graphic design. He's the marketing director for Miami's Catholic Newman Center, a senator for the Associated Student Government and host of Redhawk Radio’s metal and rock show, “Soul Wars.”
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