some sobering facts

You may or may not have gleaned from my posts that I run marathons with Fred's Team, raising funds for cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Fred's Team focuses their efforts on the Aubrey Fund for Pediatric Cancer Research. Here are some sobering facts about pediatric cancers:

The National Cancer Institute's (NCI) federal 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% .

Cancer accounts for the greatest number of disease deaths of children in the United States and kills more children per year than cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, asthma and AIDS combined.

Each child in the U.S. diagnosed with cancer receives approximately one-sixth of the federal research support allocated to each patient afflicted with AIDS. Yet in 2004, 48 new cases of pediatric AIDS were diagnosed vs. more than 12,000 pediatric cancer cases.

Each school day, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer.

Although the 5 year survival rate is steadily increasing, one quarter of children will die 5 years from the time of diagnosis.

Please keep these facts in mind - it's a lot to think about, but there are a lot of families bearing a terrible burden due to this awful disease.

Also, please consider making a donation to fund Neuroblastoma research at MSKCC by supporting my run in the 2008 NYC Marathon. My fundraising page on MSKCC's website is: https://fredsteam.mskcc.org/fundraising/Controller?action=userHome&user_id=26&event_id=113

Thanks so much!
Elizabeth