Solidarity HealthShare President Chris Faddis joins The BS Show to talk about new developments in cancer research and care. He also discusses how Solidarity is helping Members explore cancer treatment options. Read the transcript or listen to the interview below.
Bob Sansevere (00:00):
We are joined by Christopher Faddis, co-founder and president of the nonprofit healthcare sharing ministry, Solidarity HealthShare, which is an ethical, affordable alternative to traditional health insurance and is faithful to the moral teachings of the Catholic church. Now, Chris, I consider myself lucky or my family lucky. My dad, I will admit, he did die with, he had lung cancer, but he was a smoker. And this is a number of decades ago and there’s been a lot of advancements, it seems, in cancer treatments. And I saw one, the New York Post had a story about a cancer treatment that worked on a young boy and it was not originally for what he had, but I mean it worked. He had a tumor in his liver and it spread and it eradicated it with just two treatments. It was one of these like a T-cell type of treatment.
(00:47):
And I get encouraged by a lot of this because I have friends who’ve had cancer and deal with it, some are dealing with it now. And a good friend of a regular on here, Brian McDaniel, someone he had hired 20 years ago became basically a mainstay in the Minnesota legislature. He passed away in his 40s from a brain cancer. So I know you stay on top of a lot of this stuff. Are you hearing encouraging news about cancer treatments as well?
Chris Faddis (01:17):
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the amazing thing is, and you mentioned this young boy that you’re referring to in that story, essentially having off-label use of the drug. And I think one of the main things that’s happening is they’re starting to target these cancers, what we would call precision treatment. So they’re saying, “Hey Bob, you have colon cancer, but rather than just giving you one of five drugs, I’m going to actually take that tissue sample, I’m going to study it and the DNA and everything, and I’m going to see which drugs or medications actually will affect that tumor directly.”
(01:54):
And it’s amazing what’s happening when they do it because they actually can do less dosage. You mentioned with the young boy only needed two treatments. A lot of times it’s a smaller dose targeted to that exact tumor, not just the type of cancer, but that exact tumor and your body’s handling of that tumor. And so we’re finding more and more of those kind of treatments, precision oncology is a good term for it, is really effective. It’s a lot less of the fatigue and brain fog and all the other stuff that you get with chemo. Again, you’re going to get some of that and you are going to have some intense treatments, but we’re seeing a lot of good effects there, both in the traditional sense of treating cancer, but also with some of the more advanced and alternative methods out there that are being proven as well.
Bob Sansevere (02:41):
Well, this one, it’s called a chimeric antigen receptor, a CAR T-cell therapy. It’s been used and shown promising effects on blood cancers like particular types of leukemia or lymphoma, but it had been limited. But this kid, a three-year-old boy battling a chemo resistant cancer spread from his liver to his lungs and possibly his bones declared cancer free after just two doses of the experimental therapy. And the size of the tumor that had been in his liver, 4.4 by 3.8 by 2.8 inches. On a three-year-old kid, that is enormous.
Chris Faddis (03:19):
Right.
Bob Sansevere (03:20):
It is.
Chris Faddis (03:21):
It’s probably more than the entire liver.
Bob Sansevere (03:22):
I posted this on my social media because again, and one woman had said her husband was diagnosed with gioblastoma a few months ago and she hadn’t heard of this. And I said, “Well, check with your oncologist maybe. And why not?” The problem is some of the things with these, it’s slow moving with the FDA or to get approval for these type of things. I mean, I think that if you have a cancer, then you’re told, “Well, we can’t help you.” You should be able to try something that’s worked elsewhere.
Chris Faddis (03:55):
Well, and actually, Bob, there is a law that allows you to do that. There’s the right to try bill act, which was signed into law during the first Trump administration. It was sponsored by Congressman Andy Biggs. And it was based on a bill that was passed in Arizona before that. And what it says is that if there is a drug that is in clinical trials, that a patient has the right to decide they want to elect to get that drug. Now you’ve got to work with the right doctors who know how to get access to those medications and all of that, but it is something you can do. You actually do have a right to go for that experimental medication or to say, “Hey, I want to try this. There’s a lot of promising things.” Because remember, the reason that a drug is only approved for this cancer or that cancer is only because of the way the FDA does approvals.
(04:43):
You could have a medication that’s being studied for 20 different things and has all these different benefits. And ultimately before you go to FDA trial, you have to choose what your therapeutic use is and what avenue you’re going down. And each of those types of treatment has to be a whole separate approval. So what they’ll do is say, “Well, the feasibility study of the pharmaceutical company says we’re going to make the most money on this
(05:08):
Use.” So that’s all they do. That doesn’t mean it’s not effective for other things. And doctors are typically smart enough in knowing how to use it for off-label use or to do these other kind of experimental approaches. Again, you as a patient have a right to try, especially if you have a terminal illness, I believe is one of the requirements. So that is something for people to look into. I wish I had all the info on how to apply that, but I’m telling you it
Bob Sansevere (05:34):
Is a great
Chris Faddis (05:34):
Thing that we allow that. Well,
Bob Sansevere (05:36):
It is great that they do, but my one question is what about health insurance? Would they allow it and would Solidarity Health Share allow
Chris Faddis (05:43):
It? Well, Solidarity HealthShare will. In fact, all these precision oncology, all of this is stuff that we share into. So yeah, we would. Obviously we will ask for the pre-notification and we’ll do the review, but yes, of course that is something that we will share into.
Bob Sansevere (05:58):
That’s great.
Chris Faddis (06:00):
Yeah. And then again, even the precision stuff I was talking about, the testing of the tumors against all kinds of different agents, all of that are things that we will participate in and help people have access to.
Bob Sansevere (06:11):
Now, if someone had cancer and they were a member, or even if they’re looking to become a member somewhere, and they called and said, “Hey, can you make a recommendation of what I should try?” Can you do that legally?
Chris Faddis (06:25):
We give them recommendations for certain places to go and we have a couple oncology centers of excellence that we work with. So we would tell them that. We would say this is where we encourage people to go.
Bob Sansevere (06:34):
Oh, ok.
Chris Faddis (06:35):
Again, our people can go anywhere, but we have a few that are above and beyond that we work closely with.
Bob Sansevere (06:40):
You save the legwork for people to have to try to figure out what’s a good place to go.
Chris Faddis (06:44):
Absolutely.
Bob Sansevere (06:45):
And do you have any in Phoenix?
Chris Faddis (06:48):
We do. We do. We have really, probably one of our main centers we send people to for precision oncology is in Scottsdale and then City of Hope Hospitals, which is I think five locations around the country. One of them in Phoenix is another one that we work with and we’ve worked with for many years. And again, we work with others. There’s plenty of others we work with, but those are two of the ones we send people to, especially if they’re looking for some more advanced things or especially some of the clinical trials with City of Hope and the like.
Bob Sansevere (07:18):
Yes.
Chris Faddis (07:19):
But again, there’s a lot of great places you can go and we’ll help people figure that out. We also have second opinion programs with both of those, two of our partners.
Bob Sansevere (07:30):
Oh!
Chris Faddis (07:30):
So if you have your own oncologist and you want a second opinion, we’ll do that. It’s all telephonic. You send your records and we’ll share into that cost as well.
Bob Sansevere (07:38):
That’s terrific. So now I wanted to ask you, are you watching closely the elections around the country and how might that impact health sharing if the Democrats were to take over the House and/or the Senate? Could it bring things to a standstill or not necessarily?
Chris Faddis (07:56):
I mean, it wouldn’t put us to a standstill, but it would bring any advances that we’ve talked about to a standstill. There’s some things federally that could happen if we keep the House and Senate that could help expand health sharing. But they won’t have enough to do anything to get rid of it or anything. But again, it’ll just muddy the waters. I don’t think you’ll see very much progress on healthcare initiatives, especially when it comes to congressional stuff. You’ll obviously see a lot more executive orders and a lot less action other than attempted impeachments and things.
Bob Sansevere (08:31):
Yeah, that’s what it’ll be for two years,
Chris Faddis (08:34):
Yeah.
Bob Sansevere (08:34):
Impeachment Attempts.
Chris Faddis (08:35):
And the reality is, Bob, on the healthcare stuff, the hard part is it’s really a mixed bag on who’s really, you know. There’s a lot of people in Congress who want to do things or say they want to do things, but then at the end of the day, I mean the largest lobbyists and the biggest pocketbooks in Congress are all healthcare organizations between the insurance companies, the health insurance companies, the hospital lobby, and then the pharmaceutical lobby. And so you don’t see a lot there. And so I think, I hate to say this, I have to be careful, you’ll see more bad solutions from a different side. And I think on our side, we can’t seem to get anything over the line even if they are good solutions. So it’ll be more standstill. I do think if we keep Congress and Senate, I do think that we may make some progress this coming year.
Bob Sansevere (09:25):
All Right. And then obviously –
Chris Faddis (09:27):
And not just on health sharing, I mean on everything when it comes to healthcare.
Bob Sansevere (09:30):
Well, that would be good.
Chris Faddis (09:31):
Health transparency and the whole like.
Bob Sansevere (09:34):
It would be great if that were to happen, if we could make some more advances. And I also need to remind people, Solidarity HealthShare, solidarityhealthshare.org. Check that out. The phone number’s there. Call if you have questions. It’s a great alternative to traditional healthcare. And you’ve taken care of now the younger side, young people, you’re offering them great pricing for people that don’t think they’re going to have a lot, that they need a lot to be done. And then for seniors, you’re offering now a Medicare component and that’s something you just introduced recently. So you are trying to take care of every segment of the population, which is absolutely terrific. So that’s kudos to you.
Chris Faddis (10:14):
Yeah, we are. We’ve got something for everyone and we definitely want to serve folks where they’re at. If they need something very, very affordable, we’ve got that option. If we’ve got something more comprehensive, we’ve got that option. So I think, as you know, we’re always trying to read the future of what people need. And I think there’s a lot of great things happening today, especially in this world of healthcare freedom and people making their own choices in their healthcare. And we’re right there to help people with that.
Bob Sansevere (10:41):
Terrific. Chris Faddis, co-founder and president of Solidarity Health Share and find it at solidarityhealthshare.org. We will take a quick break. The BS Show will be right back.