SAMPLE LETTER

(Your Name, Address, and Date)

Dear (fill in Congressman/Congresswoman/Senator) (name):

My (son/daughter/nephew/granddaughter/friend's child) _____________ (child's name and age) was diagnosed with (type of cancer) on (date).

While current treatments represent a tremendous advance in therapy for kids with cancer, the chemotherapy and radiation being administered as standard protocols are still highly toxic and can lead to secondary cancers, life-long chronic health problems, and learning disabilities. Too many kids are still dying from the disease. Too many who survive are doing so at great physical and emotional expense. It is simply unacceptable. 3,000 kids die each year in the U.S. from cancer and the number is growing. IT IS THE NUMBER ONE DISEASE KILLER OF CHILDREN.

Due to complicated political and financial reasons, pediatric cancer research is grossly underfunded by both federal and private agencies. Pharmaceutical companies fund over 50% of adult cancer research, but virtually nothing for kids -- there is no money to be made. The federal government, through increased funding for NIH/NCI, MUST level this playing field.

Hear are some things you can do to stop childhood cancer from killing our children:

1. Co-sponsor and support Rep. Deborah Pryce's House Resolution 576.
2. Vote for continual increases in the NIH budget and urge NIH to allocate more to childhood cancer research.
4. Find ways to provide incentives to drug companies, via the FDA, to develop and test new drugs for children.
5. Provide incentives for the best and brightest researchers to enter the pediatric oncology field, which is far less lucrative than adult oncology.
6. Target orphan drug funding. These are drugsare extremely useful and potentially life saving, but have no commercial value for drug companies. The awarding of such funds should be based on patient outcome.
7. Require federal and private insurance companies to compensate treatment facilities and physicians at rates on par with adult treatment.
8. Make sure all kids have equal access to clinical trials by passing a Children's Patient Bill of Rights that includes requirements that insurance companies cover the routine patient care costs of clinical trials which are the standard of care for pediatric cancer patients.

Aside from the obvious gain over society's personal losses, you should be motivated to help cure childhood cancer for the following reasons:

1. Advances in pediatric research have yielded treatment models and genetic information that greatly benefit adult cancer patients. (This is well documented by professional research cooperatives like the Children's Oncology Group); the reverse is not true.
2. The children you save will have a lifetime to contribute to our society; they are our greatest resource; they will be tax-paying, productive members of society for many years if saved.
3. Many parents cannot afford the unbelievable cost of treating childhood cancers -- even if they have insurance. These escalating costs will eventually fall to the governement to cover in the form of Welfare and/or Medicaid.

More detailed and substantiated background information is available online at www.nccf.org.

Sincerely,

(your name)