Sick Boy Needs Experimental Drug, #saveJosh Campaign Goes National

An experimental drug could save 7-year-old Josh Hardy, but the drug manufacturer, Chimerix, has refused a request by his parents and doctors for the drug. Josh's mom is doing national television interviews on CNN and Fox News and an online campaign has been launched: #saveJosh.

Josh has survived four fights with cancer since he was 9-months-old. After a bone marrow transplant at St Jude Children's Research Hospital earlier this year, Josh developed a rare adenovirus. His doctors have said a Chimerix drug, Brincidofovir, could help. 

The company told The Free-Lance Star last week that the drug is in the midst of a complicated FDA approval process and can't be released for Josh's treatment. 

It has sent mom, Aimee, away from her son's bedside for national television interviews.

"I'm grateful for you to have us here, but I want to be by his bedside, holding his hand and telling him, it's going to be OK," Aimee Hardy told Fox News. "But because of this unwillingness to release this drug, I have to leave him and come talk to you. It infuriates me."

Family, friends and complete strangers are calling for the company to release the drug to save this boy. A Facebook page has been launched, along with petitions at change.org and the White House petition page.

Comments at change.org ask Chimerix to make an exception for Josh. "The child is a human being," writes Marie Whalen of Spokane, Wash. "Please, respond like human beings and help him."

Even the owner of an unrelated "Chimerix" Facebook page is receiving the calls for action, posting this morning: "Look everybody, I'm not a drug company. I don't know what you're talking about, but I hope Josh gets his meds."

The actual Chimerix contact information is here.