An advertisement currently airing in Los Angeles (and possibly other cities) for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital strongly suggests that this institution is responsible for increasing the survival rate of childhood leukemia from 4% an unspecified time ago to 80%+ today. The page on their website which addresses childhood leukemia and lymphomas parrots this assertion. Is this a valid assertion? I have always been led to believe that the near amelioration of childhood leukemia which we have achieved is the direct result of the chemotherapeutic properties of vincristine and vinblastine—compounds which are derived from the Madagascar periwinkle. Assuming that this statement is true, did St. Jude’s somehow have a hand in this discovery? Or is it that they have they refined the treatment to such an extent that they have achieved an even more notable success rate in curing this disease? The advertisement appears to be deliberately vague in its wording. To what extent are they responsible for the advances made in this field?
Childrens’ Hospital in Birmingham AL, Vanderbilt H. in Nashville TN, and St. Judes in Memphis TN have been cooperating in tracking childhood cancer for more that 15 years that I am aware of. This results in improved chemotherapy/treatments of a variety of diseases affecting children.
My grandson endured a year of treatment in and out of Birmingham and is now 15 years cancer free. Some indication of Hep.C from blood transfusions.
The Jimmy Fund out of the Dan Faber quotes those stats ad infinitium, as I volunteer for them. I find it amazing, but I haven’t the faintest idea about who is exactly responsible for it. I know my current boss worked on the complete synthesis of one of those in grad school along with everyone else studying natural products in the 1970s.