Mexico Offers Free Cancer Treatment to Children

Is this for real?? Free Cancer Treatment for Children? Why can't every nation offer this? How is Mexico able to afford and fund this?

President Fox
Promises Free Cancer Treatment For All Mexican Children

MEXICO CITY -- All Mexican children with cancer will receive free treatment as long as they need it, President Vicente Fox announced Thursday.

The announcement came as Fox inaugurated the Mexico City-based National Council for the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer in Infants and Adolescents.

The council will serve as a clearinghouse for the "total treatment of this evil, which has become one of the principal health problems affecting children in our country," Fox said.

Currently, Mexico's social security system covers people who work in taxpaying jobs, while most people involved in the informal economy -- maids, street vendors, and farmers -- are left out. At least half of Mexico's employed population is estimated to work in the informal economy.

"With the council's help, in Mexico there no longer will be any child or adolescent with cancer who lacks the necessary medical and psychological attention," Fox said. "They will receive all of this completely free of charge and during the entire duration of their recovery." (AP)

In the U.S. we have many private organizations that provide assistance to families with children who have cancer, but the majority of the financial burden usually falls onto the parents and their insurance companies. I can't seem to grasp how Mexico can do this and the USA can't.

Wow, that is quite impressive, and a great idea. I agree with you though, how can the US spend several hundred billion dollars overseas, yet we can't do this for our children. Doesn't really make sense does it?

I would love to see this happen in the USA, but first we would probally have to either A: Cut many programs or B: Raise taxes. I have a few unorthodox ideas of how the USA can gather this much money.

The Mexican government I can only guess either has one or more of the following, high taxes, low debt, and low government spending.

Vicente Fox is an unpopular president with little time left in his presidency. Even with medican being quit-less expensive in Mexico, there is little hope for a full-scale program to treat all children inflected with cancer. Think of the inundation of medical facilities where, other than the large private unaffordable hospitals, the lack of basic radiography equiptment is non existant as well as the radiation and chemical medicine is non-existant. I've spent time in rural Mexico--plenty of clinics very little equiptment.

I'm afraid this a case of President Fox, being the first president of his political party in over 50 years, trying to win favor for his wife who hopes to run when he leaves office.

At first I thought this would be a reference to the alternative cancer treatments offered by doctors who must go south of the border to practice their craft.


It's certainly a nice gesture on the part of Mr. Fox.
Since he seems to encourage his people to go north of the border, where many take advantage of government-run health care, one wonders how this will affect the northward migration of Mexican citizens.