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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Childhood Cancer Awareness
Copying this from another website who copied it from another, etc.... It was written by
a breast cancer survivor. Please read. THIS IS VERY LONG, but WELL worth the read. September and Childhood Cancer Awareness month have passed, largely unnoticed by society. The rush to shower
us with pink in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness month is reminiscent of the crowding away of pumpkins and scarecrows
by Christmas trees and snowmen. Except there's no pushing gold aside. The way is clear for pink.
Even the American
Cancer Society -- the outfit that professes to represent all cancers and provide support for everyone affected by the disease
-- the organization for which we all come together and raise funds by holding a Relay each year --
has chosen not to recognize Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Go to www.cancer.org and what do you see? The banner at the top of the page is pink
and touts the ACS' commitment to fighting breast cancer.
Of course, I, among all people, am grateful for the focus
of so many foundations and researchers on breast cancer. I know I wouldn't be looking at a future that is likely cancer free
(or free of breast cancer, anyway) without the research and the focus on breast cancer during the past decade.
Still -- I'd rather have my son.
What if the focus that remains on breast cancer was turned to pediatric brain cancer?
I
know millions of women are affected by breast cancer. But almost all of them are effectively treated.
Only thousands of kids are affected by brain cancer. But many -- perhaps most -- of them die.
This
is so politically incorrect, I am hesitant to write it. But, as I write, I am without breasts and sans colon.
And
one son short a full house.
If anyone can speak to this issue, I think I can.
I am grateful for the
pink that signals the arrival of October in our day and time. I just wish there was a wave of gold -- more in terms of funding for research,
but also in terms of awareness -- to usher in the pink.
If you are reading this, you know. You have traveled this
tragic journey with us and you are aware of the impact of pediatric cancer on families.
Will
you spread the word to someone who doesn't know today? Send an e-mail. Copy this to your blog, your faceook, your twitter.
Write a letter to a corporation or a legislator. Or to an editor.
Christine
Reid, a colleague and fellow OCU Law and Hatton Sumner alum is editor of the "Kingfisher Times and Free Press".
She was astonished at the lack of attention given to childhood cancers and wrote a fabulous article on this subject earlier
this month -- for which we are most grateful.
Here is an excerpt:
September is a disease awareness month,
which you probably recognized by the gold ribbons displayed on all the corporate advertising on TV and in magazines and the
special media reports.
What’s that? You haven’t seen any? That’s because,
for some reason, this class of diseases attracts hardly any public attention.
If I said
“pink ribbon,” you would have immediately thought of breast cancer. “Red ribbon” might be a little
trickier, but eventually you would have come up with heart disease.
But the gold ribbon is nearly invisible. It
represents childhood cancers.
Today, as you read
this, the equivalent of a classroom full of children will be diagnosed with cancer in the U.S., more than 12,400 a year.
About 4,000 child cancer victims will die this year, making cancer the number one disease-related
killer of children under 14.
While 75 percent of childhood cancer cases are curable, for some forms, a cure remains
illusive.
Only one new cancer drug has been approved for pediatric use over the past two
decades. For some of the rarest, but most deadly, childhood cancers, no new treatments have been introduced in more than three
decades.
For every one child diagnosed with pediatric AIDS, 15 children are diagnosed with cancer, yet available
funding dollars designated for research are vastly disproportionate: $595,000 for each AIDS victim
and only $20,000 for each pediatric cancer victim.
Federal funding for breast cancer research
is more than double that for all 12 major groups of pediatric cancer combined.
For
the full article: http://tinyurl.com/n64s4u"
***G L O R Y T O T H E G O L D! *** Aren't
Our Children Worth It???
12:49 pm cst
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