Help Fight the #1 Killer Disease of Children in America
10 Junho 2010 - 1:01AM
Marketwired
It is common knowledge that motor vehicle accidents and suicides
combined are the number one cause of death in children ages 1-16 in
the United States. However, few people are aware that the next
leading cause of death in children is brain cancer.
Dr. Jonathan Finlay is a professor of Pediatrics, Neurology and
Neurosurgery at USC's Keck School of Medicine and the Clinical
Director of the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles Neural Tumors
Program. "We have managed to overcome so many of the childhood
scourges such as polio and diabetes that resulted in early
mortality. Even leukemia, which had a zero survival rate in 1950,
is now at almost eighty five percent cure rate," says Dr. Finlay.
"But there are so many different kinds of brain cancer in children.
With some, we've had significant success. While with others, we
have not made progress at all."
One extraordinary success credited to Dr. Finlay was the
creation nearly twenty years ago of the "Head Start" Program. This
innovative program aggressively treats malignant brain tumors in
children under six years of age with a combination of surgery and
chemotherapy and avoids the use of radiation therapy that was shown
to irreparably damage developing brains of young children. Since
that time, he has established a multi-institutional, multi-national
consortium of 41 hospitals in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New
Zealand and Argentina which have joined together to conduct three
consecutive clinical "Head Start" trials. The last trial, in which
220 children participated, concluded in December 2009. The results
are currently under analysis.
Coordinating and collating these data is extremely costly and
Dr. Finlay's research has never been underwritten by the federal
government. His research has been fully funded by private
philanthropic organizations along with some support from Childrens
Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
However, Dr. Finlay was recently informed that two of his prime
benefactors responsible not only for funding clinical studies, but
also the support of the young doctors who win a fellowship to come
and train under him for a year, had run out of money. The funding
for this tremendously important work is no longer available.
"Right now we are training the next generation of pediatric
neuro-oncologists. These are the people who are going to make great
leaps in the field in the coming decades," says Dr. Finlay, who can
name a dozen former fellows who are now leaders in the field
throughout the world. "It is acutely a problem for the future. We
have the potential to make tremendous progress, but without
continued funding, the clinical studies and education of the next
generation of doctors will not continue."
Please see more detailed information and how to donate at:
http://www.ballantinesbiz.com/green/Finlay_charity_060210.html
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