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September 17, 2007
By Margot | September 17, 2007
Are you aware that September is national Pediatric Cancer Awareness month? Before Sam was diagnosed I was vaguely aware of pediatric cancer in the sense that I gave money when I saw telethons and dropped off a toy at preschool at Christmas for Children’s Hospital. fter our pediatrician said the ten words that turned our world upside down, “Sam has a tumor and it’s spread to his bones, ” of course I became acutely aware of pediatric cancer. As someone who works in publishing, I’m often looking for a hook that’s going to make an editor want to buy a book, a title that going to make people grab the book off the shelves. The “For Dummies” title (and great writing) put the first computer book on The New York Times bestseller list. I was pondering while running this morning what the hook would be that gets pediatric cancer, and neuroblastoma in particular, some attention. What is going to make the founders of Google say, “Wow, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have education and African diseases covered on the philanthropy front, and look, these kids with Neuroblastoma are given the same chemo they were giving them fifteen years ago. That’s criminal. We could give them a much better quality of life and save thousands of lives if we give $100 million to pedatric cancer research.” What is going to make Paris Hilton say, “Gee, jail has made me a better person. Instead of buying ten $5,000 hand bags this year, I’m going to give $50,000 to pediatric cancer. ” What will make ordinary people write /call/email their congressman and tell them to pass the damn Conquer Childhood Cancer Act ? Will it be ugly statistics like those below?SOME FACTS ABOUT PEDIATRIC CANCER:
- Â Childhood cancer is the number one disease killer in children.
- Â Neuroblastoma is the most common cancer in infancy.
- Â Neuroblastoma is the most common extra cranial solid tumor cancer in children.
- Â Every 16 hours a child with neuroblastoma dies.
- Â There is no known cure for relapsed neuroblastoma.
- Â Nearly 70% of those children first diagnosed with neuroblastoma have disease that has already metastasized or spread to other parts of the body. When disease has spread at diagnosis and a child is over the age of 2, there is less than a 30% chance of survival.
- Childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in the US and it kills more children per year than cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma and AIDS combined.
- There are 15 children diagnosed with cancer for every one child diagnosed with pediatric AIDS. Yet, the U.S. invests approximately $595,000 for research per victim of pediatric AIDS and only $20,000 for each victim of childhood cancer.
- The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) federal budget was $4.6 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 12%, prostate cancer received 7%, and all 12 major groups of pediatric cancers combined received less than 3%.
- The American Cancer spends less than 70 cents of each 100 dollars raised on childhood cancer.
Will it be a link to Christi Thomas’s website http://www.christithomas.blogspot.com so that people can read how impossible it is for this wonderful family to cope after the loss of precious Christi? Will it be the happy image from this past weekend of 47lb Sam taking the ball down the field with the other team chasing him, scoring the only goal for his team and throwing his hands up in victory and running back down the field with the hugest grin on his face? (Brandy Chastain, except for the ripping off of your shirt, you got nothing on Sam!) Don’t ask the score please.
You tell me. If you call your congressman, tell ’em Sam Hutchison sent you.
More soon.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on September 17, 2007
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