Latest Drug Shortage Threatens Children with Leukemia

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/02/16/146960417/latest-drug-shortage-threatens-children-with-leukemia
        This article discusses how there is a drug shortage of the drug called methotrexate, which is used as treatment for children with leukemia. There is a shortage of this life saving drug in some hospitals that could alter the discovery of a cure. The reporter discusses how this drug is injected into the patients spin to try to stop the cancer from spreading to the brain. He also talks to different doctors about how if this drug runs out there will be some big problems and they will have to try to substitute the medicine or delay the injection. The reason the shortage has occurred is because a supplier of the drug was shut down because of violations of health codes. They hope more amounts of the drug will be coming out to try to prevent this shortage and other suppliers are trying to produce more of the drug to keep this from happening.
        This article is relevant to our current unit in bio this term because the topic is about a drug for leukemia. In class we learned about this type of cancer and how it connects to the skeletal system, which is a topic we have studied, making the article relevant to the curriculum. It is also related to the bio term because of their discussion about how this drug is injected to the spine so that it can stop the spread of leukemia to the brain. This is showing how the spinal cord and brain are related in a way, which matches up with our study of the central nervous system consisting of brain and spinal cord.

Story by Richard Knox
February 16, 2012