And We're Off...

As things are getting rolling at RAC, I’m getting used to life as an intern for a busy non-profit organization. I have contacted event venues and event coordinators, blogged on the organization’s website, written articles for the e-newsletter, and I’ve recently created my personal website. Please feel free to visit anytime at www.tuckerpetty.com.

With the CureSearch Reach the Day event coming up, we are researching past legislation as well as proposed legislation and appropriations that would benefit the childhood cancer community. Lisa White and the other Rock Against Cancer advocates who have attended the event before are aware of how things work on Capitol Hill during the two-day event. Now, I have to catch up and be ready to make the event a success.

It’s crunch time and I have until Monday morning to become familiar with CureSearch, knowledgeable about legislation and to beo share my story with our Congressional representatives.

CureSearch is an organization that funds pediatric oncology clinical trials at hospitals across the United States. It funds the lifesaving, collaborative research of the Children’s Oncology Group, the world’s largest cooperative pediatric cancer research organization, which treats 90% of children with cancer in the U.S.

Thanks in large part to funding from CureSearch, the Children’s Oncology Group’s research has contributed to the outstanding cure rate of childhood cancer today. Less than 10 percent of children survived cancer in the 1950s. Today, the cure rate is almost 80 percent, and CureSearch’s goal is to raise that rate to 100 percent. Those numbers alone should convince Congress to support appropriations to research.

Who would have figured that so much interesting information would be available to me at RAC? OK, I guess that would be obvious.

Another interesting fact: the U.S. Department of Defense has a long history of leadership in cancer research spanning back to the 1940s. The Dept. of Defense has a pending 2011 Appropriation Request for $10 million of funding to support pediatric cancer research and clinical trials. The funding will be used to support and expand upon existing department-supported research, specifically, genome wide screening for therapeutic targets in high-risk childhood cancer.

Armed with that information as well as some about the Childhood Cancer Survivorship Research and Quality of Life Act of 2009 and the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act, my colleagues and I will travel to Capitol Hill with a mission to gain Congressional support for childhood cancer research funding!