Living With Cystic Fibrosis

We’re in Canada for this podcast. Canadian Advocate Beth Vanstone has two daughters, one with CF and she’s hosting this podcast with Laura Bonnell.Beth is introducing us to 32-year-old To Touraj Dehghan Manshadi who has a CF mutation that is common to Iran, but rare in Canada where he lives. You may be surprised to learn Canada does not have a rare disease strategy. We know American’s thinking that medically everything is better in Canada, but that’s not true. Many countries around the globe are struggling with the high cost of drugs for Rare Diseases, Canada is no exception. However, while we see industrialized countries around world looking at solutions to get rare therapies to patients quickly in an effort to maintain, improve and save lives, Canada remains stuck relying on a drug system designed to handle aspirin. Canada is the only country in the G7 without a national approach to rare diseases.In February 2023 the Federal government announced a Rare Disease Drug Strategy with a 1.4 billion budget over th