PAC2 Initiative - Letters to the Editor

[PAC2]

What is Letters to the Editor

This PAC2 Initiative will focus on PAC2 members contacting local and national media (websites, newspapers, news magazines, etc) to seek awareness and recognition of September as National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

A similar PAC2 Initiative resulted in over 50 articles being published and a wonderful photojournalism piece in the Boston Globe, The BIg Picture - Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

What Can I Do

Please take the time to write the media. Locally and nationally. Tell your story. Give the stats and talk about funding issues. Better yet, tell YOUR story and your CHILD'S story.  Your passion will come through, be very compelling, and your voice will be heard! 

This will help raise awareness. With awareness comes funding. With funding comes research. With research comes a cure.  Here's some example language you can cut and paste:

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. This month and every month, nearly 1,200 kids will be diagnosed, and nearly 250 children will die from cancer, the #1 disease killer of kids in the US.   Childhood cancer cure rates have plateaued in the past decade.  About 1 in 300 American children will be diagnosed with cancer before age 20.  Survivors face a 2/3 chance of long-term health effects (e.g., secondary cancers, major organ damage).

According to Dr. Eugenie Kleinerman,  Head of the Division of Pediatrics, Children's Cancer Hospital at MD Anderson Cancer Center: "Curing childhood cancer is the equivalent of curing breast cancer in terms of productive life years saved."   Yet childhood cancer is considered rare.

Despite these horrible facts childhood cancer research is vastly underfunded.  Most current treatments for children with cancer were developed over 25 years ago and not one new drug has been introduced to treat childhood cancer in the last 20 years.  More research is desperately need to find less-toxic and more effective treatments for our kids.  Only a 100% cure rate is acceptable for our children!  Yet federal funding is less than 4% of the National Cancer Institute's budget.  Private research by industry, the major funder of adult cancer research, is virtually non-existent because childhood cancer is considered rare and non-profitable. 

Please, visit [insert charity of your choice] who is helping fund more research to find the cure for childhood cancer.

[Obviously insert your story as appropriate.]

Also consider there facts on Childhood Cancer (courtesy of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation)

• One in every 330 Americans develops cancer before the age of twenty.
• On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States.
• On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients.
• Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States.
• Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer.
• The causes of most childhood cancers are unknown. At present, childhood cancer cannot be prevented.
• Childhood cancer occurs regularly, randomly and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. In the United States, the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults is increasing at a greater rate than any other age group, except those over 65 years.
• Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.

 

Who Should I Write?

To find a comprehensive list of media emails visit this link on the CureSearch for Children's Cancer's webpage.

Or use these e-mail address links:

 TODAY - [e-mail]
Nightly News with Brian Williams - [e-mail]
Dateline NBC - [e-mail]
Newsweek - [e-mail]
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Thanks to all PAC2 members for all you do.  Good luck with your letters!

[Lisa A. Bender]

Just did this. Thanks for the link; it was easy! Sent to Chicago Tribune & Chi Sun Times, as well as 3 local papers. This was a great idea. I hope to hear ANY response!

[Theresa M. Collins]

Upon receipt of the message below, the editor of Harlem World asked me if there is any September Awareness activity planned in Harlem NY.  I promised to find out, and think he will cover if we can.  Can anyone help with info?

 KidsCancerFight.org (http://on.fb.me/r3VckY

 

)is the newly launched coordination of organizations serving the childhood cancer community. It has a public service announcement for US radio stations.Hear the PSA @ http://www.kidscancerfight.org/index.php/psa-campaign-kidscancerfight

 

. Please listen, please share with your colleagues and audiences. Thank You.
Sept. is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (see also http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/01/proclamation-...

[Linda]

The Boston Globe Article was from 2008.  Just want to make sure the facts listed above are current for the year 2011;  I always see the same statistics in different websites and wondered how recently they've been updated or if everyone is pulling from the same old data.

[AJs Dad]

Hi Linda,

 

the 'number' truly is a source of a bit of confusion.  Right now It seems to be generally accepted that each year around 13,500 children are diagnosed with cancer in the US.  That equals 36.9 kids per day or around 46 kids every school day. 

 

The latest data I've seen is from the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975–2007, published in the Journal of the NCI in March 2011.  It states that in 2007 there were 14,119 cases of childhood cancer (ages 0-19).  That would equal 39 per day.   One's too many.