Did You Know?

This is the first of our Did You Know? campaign aimed to raise awareness for Childhood Cancer statistics.
Childhood Cancer IS the #1 killer from disease of our nations children! Our kids deserve more than 4% of national cancer research funds.
Please help us educate the public and spread the word by sharing!‪ #‎didyouknow‬ ‪#‎morethan4‬ ‪#‎alexsarmyccf‬

DidYouKnow01

Children’s Cancer Is Unprofitable and Ignored

An estimated 2,000 children die of cancer each year, and the overall incidence of childhood cancer has been slowly increasing since 1975. Despite significant advances against certain pediatric cancers, including acute lymphoblastic leukemia, there are still some types of cancer for which there are few or no effective treatments. As John London found out, new drug development in the field is slow, often lagging way behind adult treatments, and few compounds are designed specifically for children. “I was on my own, as many parents are,” London says. “The medical community had no interest.”

That is in large part due to a practical reason: Childhood cancers make up less than 1 percent of all cancers diagnosed each year, according to the American Cancer Society. That 1 percent is not much of a market for drugmakers, who rack up an estimated $1.4 billion in out-of-pocket costs while bringing a novel drug to market. They would never recoup that treating the 700 children diagnosed with neuroblastoma annually, or the 100 diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a deadly brain tumor.

“The big elephant in the room is the cost of this type of research,” says Raphaël Rousseau, director of pediatric oncology drug development at pharmaceutical giant Roche. Combined with the small potential market, that’s led very few pharmaceutical companies to invest in developing drugs for pediatric cancer. Merck has one ongoing pediatric oncology trial. Pfizer is testing preclinical therapies only. Novartis leads the pack, with seven drugs in clinical trials for children’s cancer.

Where Big Pharma is absent, government has stepped in. Most pediatric clinical trials are operated by the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Children’s Oncology Group (COG), which runs approximately 40 to 50 therapeutic trials across the country at any one time, according to Peter Adamson, chairman of the organization and a pediatric oncologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Yet even with federal funding, pediatric cancer research receives only a fraction of the money that adult cancer research gets, and it’s decreasing. In 2013, the NCI invested $185.1 million from a $4.79 billion budget in pediatric cancer research, the lowest amount since 2009.

“The options we have now to be explored are really blossoming, but the funds available to do the studies that need to be done are shrinking,” says Richard O’Reilly, chairman of pediatric oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in Manhattan. ‘We don’t want future generations to look back on this time and ask, ‘What the hell were they doing?’”

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Taylor Swift donates $50,000 to fan with leukaemia

The 25-year-old singer gave $50,000 (£32,417) to an 11-year-old fan currently undergoing leukemia treatment on Tuesday evening, after discovering that her six-to-ninth month stay in hospital would mean she would miss Swift’s concert in August.

The family of Naomi Oakes, from Arizona, set up a crowdfunding website after discovering her diagosis of acute myelogenous leukaemia at the end of June.

Her medical bills, her uncle wrote on the page, came to $2,000 within the first 48 hours of her first visiting the doctor, and they were hoping to raise $30,000 in charitable donations to cover the bills for Oakes’ treatment.

Swift made three $15,000 donations and one of $5,000, along with the message: “To the beautiful and brave Naomi, I’m sorry you have to miss it, but there will always be more concerts. Let’s focus on getting you feeling better. I’m sending the biggest hugs to you and your family.”

It’s likely that Swift saw the video Oakes’ family made, which showed how the little girl had chosen the singer’s latest single Bad Blood as her ‘fight song’.

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Save the Date: 7th Annual Walk-N-Roll Toward Wellness 5K

7thAnnualWalkNRoll

We are SO excited to announce our 7th Annual Walk-N-Roll Toward Wellness fundraising event. Every year our event has grown and this year we expect to be no exception. We have some new fun things added this year, such as a kids FUN RUN to be held prior to the 5K as well as a few new exciting vendors! We will have the usual moon bounces, we are so excited that Mini from Mini’s Mission will be joining us again, and lots more! So save the date and plan on bringing the entire family to this awesome annual event!

If you are interested in helping by either volunteering for the event OR by becoming an official event sponsor, please contact us via the “Our Team” section on our website. Fill out the info and someone will be in touch with you shortly.

For more information on sponsorship opportunities, there is a link below to the sponsor application for this years’ event.

It Takes and Army to Fight Childhood Cancer…We Are Alex’s Army!

Event Page

Register

Walk Flyer

Sponsor Application

Fighting Childhood Cancer Until There's a Cure!