A new law in Delaware will allow people with life threatening cancers access to drugs they need without having to try and fail other treatments first.
Gov. John Carney (D) signed HB 120 into law on Wednesday. Many advocates say this is a step forward for the First State.
Before, insurance companies required that Delawareans try a series of cheaper, less intrusive treatments before moving onto stronger, more costly medication that their doctors recommended.
“We’re moving the needle further and further towards the ultimate, which would be to find a cure for cancer,” said Denni Ferrara, the president of the Leukemia Research Foundation of Delaware.
Ferrara’s daughter Natalia was diagnosed with a high-risk form of Leukemia at three-and-a-half years old. She’s now 23 and a cancer survivor.
But Ferrara said it wasn’t easy. Treatment 20 years ago was a lot of trial and error, and even stayed that way for the most part leading up to the passage of the bill.
“[Doctors] decided which course she was going to take. They didn’t know back then how all the drugs interacted,” Ferrara said.
Delaware is ranked 16th in the country for overall cancer mortality. According to the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, the state’s cancer death rates have decreased by more than 25 percent since the 1980s. In the 1990s, the state was ranked second for cancer mortality.
“While we are seeing progress, we still have much more work to do to save more lives and prevent more cancers,” said Emily Knearl, a spokeswoman for the DHSS.
The new law was first geared at people with stage four metastatic cancer, but House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst (D-Bear), one of the bill’s sponsors, said she tailored it to also help children with life threatening cancers as young as Natalia was. Children aren’t diagnosed on a stage 4-type scale.
Longhurst said she hopes the new law will make a difference for anyone who needs to undergo treatment for life threatening cancers.
“Time is of the essence and the doctor and the patient should be the ones who decide what treatments — if they’re not working — what they should go onto next. They shouldn’t have to wait until a drug fails in order for them to try another experimental drug,” Longhurst said.
Longhurst said she plans to follow up with cancer support groups and doctors next year to see how the new law has worked.
The law was inspired by President Jimmy Carter’s battle with cancer. Carter went through an immunotherapy called Keytruda, which yielded positives results — shrinking his metastatic melanoma tumors.
“I want to see success stories like with Jimmy Carter, in Delaware,” Longhurst said.
Georgia and Maryland have passed similar legislation.
