President Obama announced Tuesday in his final State of the Union that Vice President Joe Biden would spearhead an initiative to cure cancer.
“Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer,” Obama said, before noting that Biden has worked with Congress to add resources for the National Institutes of Health. “Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.”
This comment got enormous applause, as the President turned to Biden and went off script, saying, “What do you say, Joe?” Biden gave him a thumbs up, to more applause. “Let’s make it happen,” President Obama said.
Vice President Biden lost his son, Beau Biden, 46, to brain cancer in 2015.
Category Archives: Pediatric Cancer
Childhood Cancer is not rare
How One Alaska Mom Is Bringing ‘A Little Magic’ To Kids With Cancer
With the generous support of people in her community and beyond, an Alaska mom is bringing a touch of magic to the lives of young cancer patients through beautiful and whimsical “princess” wigs, all made painstakingly by hand.
The story of these wigs began last year when Holly Christensen got news that her friend’s 3-year-old daughter, Lily, had been diagnosed with cancer. A former oncology nurse, Christensen says she was deeply grieved for the child.
“I knew having been a cancer nurse what she was about to go through,” the 31-year-old mom of three told KTVA.com.
There was, she knew, much suffering ahead for Lily, who was going to undergo chemotherapy. “She’s such a girly girl and loves princesses and [was] about to lose her long beautiful hair,” Christensen, who lives in Palmer, Alaska, told ABC News.
That’s when Christensen says she got the idea to create a special handmade wig for Lily: A Rapunzel-inspired braided style made out of very soft yellow yarn.
Chemotherapy can leave a child’s skin “very tender and sensitive,” making wearing traditional wigs uncomfortable, Christensen explained. The wig she created for Lily was made on an extra-soft crocheted beanie.
“I knew she would be going through a difficult time, and that no one would be able to take her suffering away,” Christensen told Babble. “I also knew that losing her long, curly blonde hair at not even 3 years old would be difficult for her, so I figured that the yarn wig could help bring a little magic and fun to a difficult time in her life.”
Lily is said to have immediately fallen in love with the wig. She would stroke the yarn, Christensen said, and would talk about a time when she would get her “real ‘Rapunzel’ hair” back. It made her “feel like the beautiful princess she is,” said the mom.
4-year-old cancer survivor dresses as herself for ‘Superhero Day’
Josie Kimberlin is one 4-year-old who knows what real superheroes are made of.
They aren’t composed of muscles made of steel, or men flying around in the sky, or even women with impossibly tight leather suits. Instead, real superheroes are made of courage, bravery, and kindness. All of which this one little girl has displayed before she even entered kindergarten.
And the best part is — she completely knows her own strength.
Diagnosed in 2013 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Josie went into remission nine months after her cancer was discovered. So the night before “Superhero Day” at school, Josie’s mother, Alyssa Butler, encouraged her daughter to dress up as herself instead of a classic superhero. Butler told The Huffington Post:
“We were going through her closet the night before and she didn’t really have anything with any kind of superhero stuff on it, so I asked her, ‘Do you just want to go as yourself? Because you know you’re mommy’s superhero. And she just kind of ran with the idea and she loved it.”
Butler explained to Babble that she told Josie that she was her hero and how brave she was.
“She smiled, lit up with a glow that could light the night sky, put her hands up, and acted like she was flying! She felt awesome – she is my hero, and we want to show the other kids battling cancer and disease how strong they are. How they aren’t alone fighting, how they are their own superhero.”
According to her Facebook page, Josie’s Journey, strength has been a common theme in the family’s experience with cancer.
“My daughter has shown me how strong a child really is, how smart a woman really can be, and how easy my heart is broken. The day I heard the news of my angel having cancer, I completely lost it. Shortly after, I looked at her sweet smile and realized that I have to stand up be a stronger mother.”
Did You Know?
Alex’s Army recently donated $35,000.00 to Wilms Tumor Research, and the awesome thing is our foundation is only 1 year old!
We are committed to helping make up for the lack of funding childhood cancer research currently receives from our government, our nations kids deserve #morethan4!
While this is a small donation in the world of big pharma and research, to our small organization and as parents of a child who has fought this exact cancer for 6 years, $35,000.00 is HUGE and we are so excited to be able to continue do whatever we can to help fund new research initiatives as our foundation grows!
Right now Alex’s Army is on the leaderboard for the WTOP contest, which truly is amazing! That said,we REALLY want that prize money so we can continue our mission to help families like ours battling this disease!
We have an amazing event we are planning in January that will directly impact lives for families affected by childhood cancer in our area! This money would be a HUGE blessing to that event for those families.
Please help us
When you share, be sure to suggest Alex’s Army, if you just share the link then your friends and followers won’t know what you want them to do or who you want them to vote for.
Contest ended September 25th at 5 PM.
From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you!
So, where does the money go?
We had to share this article as it clearly breaks down how funds are spent via various cancer organizations.
Come to our 7th Annual Alex’s Walk N Roll Toward Wellness and learn how Alex’s Army is spending your donations!
Loss of a local hero
We are so incredibly saddened to learn of local hero, Lenny Robinson’s tragic passing this past weekend. We had the chance to meet Mr. Robinson at Children’s in DC when Alex was there for ICE-T treatment and rehab back in 2012 and again at a Life With Cancer Father/Son night. Mr. Robinson had a truly remarkable giving heart and a love for bringing joy to kids who were sick for various reasons. Our most sincere condolences go out to Lenny Robinson’s family and friends, he truly will be missed by all who had the opportunity to know him.
Did You Know?
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
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?’”