September just ended and another Presidential Proclamation was issued declaring our country’s renewed commitment to curing childhood cancer. Yet, thousand of kids are diagnosed with pediatric cancer each year and now it’s October and it’s on the “Finding the Cure” for breast cancer. Childhood cancer is comprised of 12 to 13 uniquely different major types of cancer with 10-12 subsets in each group and they’re all lumped together under one disease. I wonder if the same method was was applied to adult cancers would we accept such a seemingly insensitive approach. Can you imagine the uproar if breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer and testicular cancer were all just lumped together as “adult cancers”.
It would be nice (but naive on my part) to think that some day we might take a more direct approach at childhood cancers. Let’s start by educating people about the different types of childhood cancers and the anemic amount of research funding being directed at specific childhood cancers like: pediatric leukemia, pediatric neuroblastoma or pediatric rhabdomyosarcome Now that would be a September to proclaim!
In the meantime, it’s October and childhood cancers still remain the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 15. There are still 40,000 kids in the United States alone fighting for their lives and 2,000 of them live right here in New Jersey.
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So, today October 3rd, right now, why not make your own proclamation to get involved. You can make a huge difference in so, so many ways; donate blood, donate platelets, donate your time and if at all possible donate some money. It’s most likely, the only way that some day September can be proclaimed by some other disease other than childhood cancer.
