County Executive PJ Wendel is recognizing Child Cancer Awareness month for the month of September.
Wendel presented the proclamation on Child Cancer Awareness month at the August County Legislature meeting. He said in it that cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children in the United States, with it being estimated that 10,470 children under the age of 15 will be diagnosed with cancer this year and about 1,050 will die.
Speaking with WRFA in his monthly interview, Wendel said he recently learned that a 16-year old son of a former co-worker was recently diagnosed with cancer, “Thinking of that family, a month ago you’re thinking about starting the school year and the excitement and then within a couple weeks you’re diagnosed with a form of cancer. And I can’t imagine what that’s like for the family because it just stops your world. You’re not focused on going back to school, or school shopping, or picnics, or parties. It’s ‘What do we do?’ and ‘What’s the long road ahead of us?’ and the doctors and the poking and the prodding and the treatments.”
Wendel said since 2020, only six new cancer drugs for pediatric cancer have been developed in comparison to the multitude of cancer drugs being developed for adults.
Tara Swan, mother of Kallie Swan who died at the age of 3 from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in 2013, spoke at the County Legislature meeting as well. She was joined by Bella Lisciandro, who is a sophomore at Jamestown High School, and Lucas Gibbons, “Bella was diagnosed in 2013 and still continues to, every day, battle and deal with the side effects as well the residual disease of her brain tumor.”
Swan said Lucas was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 as well. She said childhood cancer is greatly underfunded in comparison to cancer that affects adults, “Like Mr. Wendel had mentioned, it’s only had six new drugs created and they’re finding, obviously, that these drugs are affecting the kids differently than it is the adults. So, we continue to battle with it. We appreciate the awareness in September, but unfortunately it’s something that we live with every day.”
Governor Kathy Hochul had 15 landmarks and bridges across New York illuminated Tuesday night in yellow in recognition of National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
To learn more about childhood cancers visit: https://www.cancer.gov/types/childhood-cancers
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