A house RESOLUTION

 

to proclaim September 2023 as "Childhood Cancer Awareness Month" in the State of South Carolina and to encourage all South Carolinians to support this cause that so deeply impacts families in every community across the State and nation.

 

Whereas, childhood cancer is the number-one, disease-related killer of children and teenagers in the United States.  One in five children diagnosed with cancer will die within five years of diagnosis.  In addition, one in two hundred eighty-five American children will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of twenty.  Cancer alone represents nearly half of the top seven causes of death by disease in children aged zero to nineteen years old.  The average age of death for a child with cancer is eight, causing a child to lose seventy years of expected life; and

 

Whereas, childhood cancer is on the rise, with an estimated 17,155 children diagnosed every year, forty-seven per day, in the United States alone.  Childhood cancers and adult cancers are different, yet downsized adult cancer protocols continue to be used on children, often with devastating effects.  A lack of childhood cancer research has colossal impact on children and significant costs to society; and

 

Whereas, statistics for 2022 are expected to show that one thousand one hundred ninety children aged zero to fourteen and five hundred forty adolescents aged fifteen to nineteen will have died from cancer in 2022; and

 

Whereas, the overall incidence of childhood cancer is on the increase, averaging a 0.8 percent increase per year since 1975; and

 

Whereas, children who survive for five years after a cancer diagnosis experience a fifteen-fold increased risk of developing congestive heart failure and seven-fold higher risk of premature death due to cardiac causes.  Survivors are also at increased risk for recurrence of the original cancer or of a secondary cancer.  More than ninety-five percent of childhood cancer survivors will have a significant health-related issue by the time they are forty-five years of age; these health-related issues are side effects of either the cancer or more commonly, the result of its treatment. One third will suffer severe and chronic side effects; one third will suffer moderate to severe health problems; and one third will suffer slight to moderate side effects; and

 

Whereas, the five-year survival rate for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Gliomas (DIPG) remains almost zero percent.  The median survival for a child diagnosed with DIPG is 8-11 months; and

 

Whereas, the financial toll that a childhood cancer diagnosis and treatment can take on a family is devastating.  Based upon 2018 figures, the average cost associated with childhood cancer for a single child is 833,000 dollars in medical costs and lost parental wages; and

 

Whereas, many adult cancers can be diagnosed early, yet in eighty percent of children, cancer has already spread to other areas of the body by the time it is diagnosed; and

 

Whereas, it is now understood by the scientific and research community that hazardous exposures in the environment are powerful causes of cancer in children, and such exposures can be reduced or eliminated to decrease the rising number of children diagnosed with cancer; and

 

Whereas, despite these alarming facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.  A total of thirty-four drugs have been approved by the FDA for use in the treatment of childhood cancers, twenty-eight of which were originally approved only for adult use.  Today, only six drugs have been approved in the first instance for use in cancer treatment for children.  Now, therefore,

 

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:

 

That the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, by this resolution, proclaim September 2023 as "Childhood Cancer Awareness Month" in the State of South Carolina and encourage all South Carolinians to support this cause that so deeply impacts families in every community across the State and nation.

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