Breast Cancer Claims Treatment Coverage Pioneer Rebecca Shields Of Boise Dies At 39 After Fighting For Marrow Transplant

Rebecca Shields lost her six-year battle with breast cancer, but her family and friends believe she helped women advance in the war over treatment costs.

Shields, 39, died Tuesday, two years after receiving a type of bone-marrow transplant that her health insurance would not cover because the procedure is regarded as experimental for breast cancer.

Hewlett-Packard Co., where she worked, began paying for the treatment Jan. 1. The company is self-insured.

“People I’ve talked with, we all know that

Becky was pioneering for women,” adds Debbie Heist, a Hewlett-Packard employee. “What Becky went through wasn’t in vain.”

Shields’ plight led her co-workers and other Boise residents to raise money for the procedure, which cost $90,000. They raised $75,000 through a dance, rummage sale and raffle. The Shieldses paid the rest. Up to 60 HewlettPackard employees helped organize or run the fund-raising events.

Other breast-cancer patients around the country have sued trying to get their insurers to cover the cost of the procedure, called highdose chemotherapy and stem-cell transplant.

The Shieldses did not sue Hewlett-Packard.

David Tueller, employee benefits manager for the company’s Boise site, said the decision to cover the procedure was made at corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in response to requests from the medical community and employees and after a review of treatment trends.

The American Cancer Society does not know how many people have sued. For whatever reason, more companies are starting to pay for the procedure, says the director of the American Cancer Society’s breast-cancer team.

Even with the treatment, Shields had been given a 30-percent chance of survival. She already had undergone two mastectomies, radiation and three bouts of chemotherapy, to no avail.

The transplant involves removing stem cells, the precursors of red blood cells. High doses of chemotherapy are given to kill the cancer. They also virtually wipe out the body’s defenses. The stem cells are returned to the body to build up the immune system.Boise State University football coach Pokey Allen is receiving the same treatment.