Josh Hardy's Struggle with Cancer

Floor Speech

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson) for 5 minutes.

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge a story of hardship and compassion. Josh Hardy, a young boy from Fredericksburg, Virginia, survived a battle with cancer when he was just 9 months old. Today, at the age of 7, he is currently suffering from a life-threatening infection acquired during his cancer treatment at St. Jude Children's Hospital.

A pharmaceutical company, Chimerix, produces the medication Josh's doctors believe could help save his life. Unfortunately, the drug was still in trial testing, and the company has been unable to provide access due to the number of requests for the drug and the rate of its production in the testing stage.

Physicians at St. Jude's Hospital and members of Josh's family pleaded for Josh to obtain access to the drug. Last Friday, Matt Hardy, Josh's uncle, of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, a constituent of mine, contacted my office to request our support in seeing if the drug could get approved.

Josh's story has become widely known across the country. Yesterday, Chimerix agreed to provide Josh access to their environmental antiviral drug for his treatment. This small business should be commended for their compassion and making tough decisions. We hope they can continue with expedience to bring their product to market in order to help others like Josh.

Mr. Speaker, through these tough times, our thoughts and prayers remain with Josh, his family, and the countless individuals committed to making lives better through cutting edge medical research.

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