Local St. Baldrick’s hits goal as new pediatric cancer drug announced

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

MARBLE FALLS — A few days after the Marble Falls fundraiser for St. Baldrick’s Foundation raised more than $19,000 in the fight against pediatric cancer, the national organization announced that the FDA had just approved the first drug in 20 years specifically for a childhood cancer.

Some of the funding for the research and development for this groundbreaking treatment came from fundraisers just like the one held March 7 in Marble Falls, St. Baldrick’s officials said.

“I didn’t know about that,” said Craig Lusinger, the organizer of the Marble Falls event about the new treatment. “That’s great. But we can’t stop. There is so much more that has to be done. I’m happy about this new drug, but that doesn’t inspire me as much as meeting the parents of children who just six months before were watching their kids play baseball but now are watching them fight this terrible disease of cancer. That’s why I do this. That’s why we need to keep going and fight even harder for these kids.”

St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a national organization that raises money for pediatric cancer research. It’s the largest private organization directing money for childhood cancer research and treatment. Since 2005, it’s raised more than $154 million in research funding.

Lusinger first became aware of the uphill battle pediatric cancer patients faced when he started bringing many out to his family’s Highland Lakes ranch each fall. He learned it had been more than two decades since the development of a new drug directly targeting pediatric cancer and one of its many forms. So when he found out about St. Baldrick’s and its annual fundraiser during which volunteers raise money and get their heads shaved for the cause, Lusinger jumped in the barber’s chair.

His first foray was at a St. Baldrick’s fundraiser at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin several years ago. Then three years ago, Lusinger organized the first Marble Falls event.

Over the past three years, the Marble Falls event has raised more than $75,000 for St. Baldrick’s.

On March 10, the FDA approved Unituxin as part of the treatment for pediatric patients with high-risk neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that occurs in young children. Dr. Alice Yu of the University of California San Diego, and a principal researcher involved in the development of this new therapy, credited St. Baldrick’s and its thousands of volunteers for helping make the new treatment a reality.

“The research that led to Unituxin’s FDA approval was decades in the making, and the St. Baldrick’s Foundation helped to make it possible with their funding of my work,” Yu said in a news release. “All of the support and the collaboration surrounding finally making this treatment available is testament to the power of what we as individuals can do when working together.”

According to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, more than 31,000 volunteers will participate in the signature head-shaving fundraiser this year, which helps raise money for further research.

While the new treatment is great news, Lusinger isn’t ready to celebrate.

“Any step forward is great, but for me, it still doesn’t change anything because there are so many different types of cancers out there and we need to keep going until we have wiped them all out,” he said. “That’s why I’m not stopping.”

Call Lusinger at (830) 613-9161 to support the Marble Falls event or go to www.stbaldricks.org for more information on the foundation.

daniel@thepicayune.com