The social issue that I chose to do is the shortage of the cancer drug Vincristine.

I do not

have a tone of personal experience, in regards to me or my immediate family. One of my close

neighbors had a son who was diagnosed with leukemia within the first year of his life. He fought

the disease for almost seven years before it finally took him. During that time, we were all pretty

involved with the situation. I was really good friends with his older brother, and the mom was

my church leader. She was really good about sharing their story and keeping everyone updated.

A couple weeks before he died, the community came together and celebrated all the holidays that

week.

That was the first time that I really “experienced” cancer. I was also always very

interested in the medical field. I decided that I wanted to go into Pediatric Oncology. I cannot

even imagine going through what all these little kids go through. Most of them are diagnosed at

such a young age that they don’t know anything besides cancer. The hospital is their home, and

the staff is their family. I want to be a part of that family, and help make these kids experiences

just a little less miserable.

For my project, I will need to do lots of research on the drug shortage itself. Why did it

occur? Why has it not been fixed like people predicted? What can be done to predict it? Most of

that is online research, however, a lot of the most beneficial information will come from other

people’s experiences and stories. Lots of different types of field work.

I think for the most part everyone is in agreement that there needs to be a fix for a bunch

of sick and dying kids. However it is still a problem. I would love to go to a hospital and observe

the differences there. I also would need to do research of the company TEVA, who stopped the

production of Vincristine. They are the ones responsible for this issue, and I think it’s really

important to find out why.