ATLANTA, Georgia - International Children's Advisory Network, Inc. (iCAN) KIDS Ohio Youth Member, Kenneth McCall III has a great perspective on pediatric medicine. His long term goal is to help kids from around the world to receive better care and treatments. In the short term, he plans on focusing a bit closer to home by bringing together medical experts to teach kids. Explains Kenneth's mom, Jahnisha Burton, "Kenneth's goal is to start a YouTube channel and help teach kids about staying safe and healthy while playing sports". As an avid football player from age 2, Kenneth knows first hand to keep his body strong and healthy. In fact, before broadcasting on his future YouTube channel, Kenneth made his debut with iCAN by recording his voice for a clinical research project for the Pediatric Trials Network (PTN). Through Kenneth's vision and expertise as a young person, PTN gains valuable support and insight for their projects focusing on sharing pediatric clinical research.
From the PTN Website: "The Pediatric Trials Network (PTN) is studying the formulation, dosing, efficacy, and safety of drugs, as well as the development of medical devices, used in pediatric patients. Children are not simply “little adults” who respond to drugs according to scale. Rather, developing organs and changes in metabolism throughout infancy and childhood affect how drugs are processed by immature or maturing bodies. Thus, special care must be taken in tailoring the use of medicines in this unique and vulnerable population.
Unfortunately, only a small percentage of drugs and devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration are actually labeled for pediatric use. Pediatricians, consequently, are often forced to prescribe medical therapies “off-label,” or according to their best guess based on adult studies.
To fill this troubling information gap, the PTN is conducting trials primarily with off-patent drugs that are lacking data in pediatric populations. Though these drugs may be commonly used, because the exclusive right to market them has expired, companies are not required and have no incentive to test them in younger age groups. Data collected from PTN trials help regulators to revise drug labels for safer and more effective use in infants and children."
Thanks to Kenneth for sharing his voice to support the work at PTN and throughout his home community. Watch for more updates as Kenneth tackles future projects. We know we can't wait! If you would like to be a part of iCAN or would like to share your voice, visit www.icanresearch.org today!
To learn more about PTN's Lay Summaries, click the links below.