“Our kids don’t deserve a death sentence.” Make childhood cancer history with us!

Moonshot4Kids:

Spearheading the Childhood Cancer Awareness Movement with the DIPG Awareness Resolution

The DIPG Awareness Resolution in US Congress, H. RES. 416 (H. Res. 404 in the 117thC) directly confronts the neglect of childhood cancer research investment and suggests that pediatric and high-mortality rate cancers have greater consideration in the research grant process. It also suggests that federal funding for childhood cancer research be increased to better accommodate the unmet medical needs of our children. It’s not enough to say that, “this or that bill or policy covers that”, without directly addressing the issue. Nothing has significantly improved for kids with brain cancer in over half a century.

Did you know that brain/CNS tumors lead in childhood cancer incidence and childhood cancer deaths?  DIPG, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, is perhaps the deadliest of them all, responsible on its own for a significant portion of the annual childhood cancer death toll, a fact of which most remain uninformed.  The experience of DIPG is a terrible wake-up call: with no effective solutions, we discover that “investment justification” and corporate interests matter more in the world of medical research than the urgency to save our children’s lives, even with available resources and willing, caring physicians and research scientists. DIPG exemplifies in a profound way the experience that so many children with cancer and their families endure–to watch their children die in utter helplessness with few if any, out-dated, ineffective therapies available in the wealthiest country in the world because, “the numbers aren’t great enough for investors.”

There is no excuse.

for the history: H. RES. 416 Press Summary. See our Letter to Congress–and please use it 🙂

Ask YOUR Rep in Congress to sign, HERE!

  • 5th introduction, May 17, 2023 in the House of Representatives of the National DIPG Awareness Resolution, H. RES. 416! Please urge your Representative to sign on to acknowledge the urgent, unmet medical needs of children with cancer. We intend to present to House Leadership, after 8 years of work, our case to allow suspension of rules consideration for this issue of urgency, that it may receive needed floor-time in the House, a consideration given to many less urgent resolutions in the House of Representatives the last 4 Congresses but denied Americas children facing a death sentence.
  • US Senate UNANIMOUS CONSENT PASSAGE of the 2024 DIPG/Pediatric Brain Cancer Awareness Resolution (6th time) acknowledging support for research into cures for the leading causes of disease-related childhood deaths: brain cancer.

Our kids don’t deserve a death sentence, and our parents don’t deserve to hear that they have to watch their children die because of contrary investment values in the wealthiest country in the world.

For nine years, with the DIPG Awareness Resolution we have attempted to gain the acknowledgement of our government officials of the urgent, unmet medical needs of children with cancer. We have made much progress, but still no attention granted on the floor of the House of Representatives–which would draw the needed attention, and education needed for a cure within 2 years instead of 10 years, and still no televised, public statement with the Cancer Moonshot that cancer is the leading disease-related cause of deaths in American Children. The experience of DIPG powerfully demonstrates the urgent need for our children to be accommodated rather than marginalized by the medical research investment culture. 

However, the resistance to this acknowlegement is real, even among the ranks of upper-level civilian advocacy and government relations. We are activists with one goal: to shine a national spotlight on the suffering and deaths of our children amid ample resources, that a cure may be accelerated.

Dr. Michelle Monje speaks to the importance of DIPG and childhood brain cancer awareness to accelerate efforts toward finding effective therapies for the afflicted.

DIPG Advocacy Group at the 2/2/22 Announcement of the New Cancer Moonshot!

H. RES. 416

Press Release from Congresswoman Dingell (MI-6)

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, author of the Fairness to Kids with Cancer Act, on the importance of funding for pediatrics: