A special message from our friend, Dante Shepherd:
Bone marrow donors are always needed in response to blood diseases like leukemia. Unfortunately, it’s not a simple case of matching blood types, but needing to find a much more exact match between donor and recipient - which is an even larger problem when the number of people on donor registration lists never encompasses enough people to have matches for everyone. The other problem is that it’s not cheap to register donors, either - conducting the analysis so you can properly be added to the lists can cost as much as $100 - so there aren’t always many registration drives that you can take part in.
My Eagle project, back when I was a Boy Scout, was to organize a bone marrow donor registration drive, partly inspired by a Scout in our troop who had died unable to find a match. I’ve been trying to figure out how to use STW to organize a new drive for a while now - a little hard when you can’t all just come down to a local building we’re having it at! - a nice idea but certainly with difficulties before we even get to the costs.
BUT - and this is good news - the National Marrow Donor Program is actually having all costs covered until the end of January. Even better, you can sign up online - it takes less than ten minutes to fill out the forms, you’ll be mailed a cheek-swabbing kit which you mail back - and bam, you’re done and registered, and it was free. So please, if you can, register to be a donor before the month is over. You may never end up being a match for someone - but every person who gets registered helps cut down on the possibility that someone won’t be able to find a match.
If you’re between 18 and 60, please consider becoming registered as a potential donor. It’s a great opportunity to do something easy, and you might end up saving a life someday. Thanks.
Today is a day off for school and work from many in the U.S. to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A man that worked for racial equality, King changed the lives of many African American citizens. Today, children all over the U.S., and the world, are up against inequalities with the same principle behind those Dr. King worked so hard to abolish.
Nine out of ten people would most likely know pink is the color in support of breast cancer. Out of those same ten people, it would be a miracle if nine knew the color for childhood cancer. Do YOU know the color? If you don’t, I’m guessing you looked to the above picture for help. By now you’ve hopefully realized it’s gold. In the past 32 years, ONE new cancer drug was approved to treat childhood cancer. In that same time frame, 50 were approved to fight adult cancers. I hope by now you see the inequality going on in the world today. This is 2012, and it is absolutely ridiculous children are still dying from cancer.
Childhood cancer is the #1 disease killer of children. It kills more children than asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined. In 2009, the American Cancer Society put just 0.6% (zero point six, or less than one percent) of their yearly profits towards childhood cancers. “The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) budget was $4.6 billion. Of that, breast cancer received 12%, prostate cancer received 7% and all 12 major groups of pediatric cancers COMBINED received less than 3%.” 46 children will be diagnosed with cancer today. 7 children will die from cancer today.
September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. In that month, gold should be everywhere one looks. It should be on everything as big as billboards on the highway to as small as the stickers put on bananas. Instead, pink is used on products of every type during September, even though Breast Cancer Awareness Month isn’t until October. Children are up against an unfair inequality, one they cannot even fight against themselves because of their age. They deserve a life where they actually get to live instead of spending numerous years in and out of hospitals only to end up with their life being stolen from them. Children deserve the same treatment given to breast cancer. They deserve equality.
This next September, think before you buy something with pink on it. I ask that you wait until October to do so. GOLD should be the known color of September, just as pink is of October. September should not be a warm up for October. Today, equality is not part of the childhood cancer world. Today, I am asking you to please stand up just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did and FIGHT for what is right. FIGHT for the equality of childhood cancer awareness and treatment against other cancers. FIGHT for children who are too young to fight for themselves. FIGHT… for a cure.
When children are diagnosed with cancer, they give it all they have to win. They never give up hope, and they never stop fighting. Don’t they deserve the chance to not only fight, but to win? Stand up for equality in the childhood cancer world. Less than 1% of a major cancer organization’s budget going to childhood cancer is NOT okay. But, we can overcome that. We can do better than the big name brand organizations. It’s time we leave them behind, and fight for what children deserve… a cure. “If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up, or Fight Like Hell.” -Lance Armstrong I’m never giving up, so that leaves me just one option…fight like hell. And that is exactly what I’m going to do. I hope you’ll join me.
Let me be clear by saying, I am not against breast cancer awareness or money going towards research. What I am against, though, is breast cancer taking over so the gold ribbon and children don’t even stand a chance. Breast cancer is monopolizing cancer research and it is not okay. Fight for equality. Fight for children.
