WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO SUPPORT PEDIATRIC CANCER RESEARCH?

1. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children.

• More children die of cancer than by asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital abnormalities and AIDS, combined.
• Approximately 12,400 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in children and teens in the U.S. each year (46 children each school day, enough to fill a school bus!), and the rate of new cases is increasing by 1% each year! The treatments are painful and toxic, generally leaving a surviving child with multiple health problems.
• The average age of diagnosis of childhood cancer is 6; the average age of diagnosis of adult cancer is 66. The loss of these bright minds and spirits, their future potential, and the family trauma cannot be measured in dollars. (80% of parents who lose a child will divorce.)

2. Research for pediatric cancer is drastically underfunded.

• Virtually all funding for pediatric cancer comes from private donations and from the U.S. government. However, only 5% of the entire government budget for medical research goes to support research for ALL pediatric diseases!!
• For each dollar of the government budget devoted to cancer research, some people have estimated that only one penny supports pediatric cancer research.
• Although there are 15 children diagnosed with cancer for each child diagnosed with pediatric aids, the U.S. devotes approximately $595,000 for research per victim of pediatric AIDS, and only $20,000 for each victim of childhood cancer.
• For each $1 spent by the U.S. government for research on prostate cancer, only 20 cents is spent by the U.S. for research on all childhood cancers.
• The drug companies do not sponsor research for drugs used specifically for childhood cancer, even though pediatric cancer is uniquely aggressive. Only one such drug has been sponsored in the last 25 years.

3. More dollars for pediatric cancer research WILL save more children!!!

Research will improve survival rates: e.g., formerly fatal, now “ALL,” the most common leukemia, has an 80 percent cure rate. Diseases such as smallpox and measles have been virtually eradicated. AIDS is no longer a death sentence, simply because of the dollars for research spent by the U.S. government. Leading researchers in childhood cancer have testified before Congress that with more research dollars, they definitely CAN save more lives. EVERY BIT HELPS!!!

Children with cancer are suffering and dying because they have no voice. We can help change that. We are only kids ourselves, but we can be the voice for children with cancer. We believe the money and consciousness we raise by Kids Walk for Kids with Cancer, however small, will help save a child with cancer.