Informative Essay On Pediatric Cancer

If you do not already have children, imagine that you have a son or daughter under the age of twenty-one, and they start complaining of pain somewhere in their body. When you take them to the doctor to have it investigated, and it turns out to be a tumor, or an obstruction in the area that is pushing against the organs or bones. The tumor your child has developed is a type of pediatric cancer and your child is now one of thirty-six children to be diagnosed every day with cancer in the United States (“Facts”). Being the smart and proactive parent that you are, you begin to research the various cures available for pediatric cancer in the United States. You discover that adult treatments are being used on children due to the lack of funding that pediatric cancer research receives. Only three new drugs have been approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) in the last twenty years specifically for the treatment of pediatric cancer (“St. Baldrick's”). Pediatric cancer affects more children in the United States than many people realize until they are researching statistics and cures for their own child. Pediatric cancer is different from

Pediatric cancer only receives four percent of all cancer research funds in the United States. In 2014, the national budget for cancer research was 4.9 billion dollars. Of that 4.9 billion dollars, only 195 million dollars was spent on pediatric research, the other 4.705 billion went to research for adults (“Cancer Facts”). Pediatric cancer is vastly under researched, and this affects the survival chances of the children who develop cancer. The government provides money to be used by researchers, but various charitable organizations are working hard to raise funds and awareness. As awareness of the suffering and lack of treatment options for children with cancer increases, donations are slowly increasing