...On Childhood Cancer

Each year there are approximately 15,700 kids diagnosed with cancer, a number that has not changed substantially in over 20 years.  Within this group, there are generally 40,000 children undergoing treatment yearly. Though many advances in therapy have been achieved, there are still 12% of children diagnosed with cancer that do not survive. Furthermore, the overall improved survival rate can be attributed primarily to the major advance in survival of one specific cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Which has improved from 50% survival from 50 years ago to 94% today.

From 1948 -2003 the FDA approved 120 new cancer therapies for adult cancers. In the last 20 years there has been only 1 drug approved for childhood cancer.
Of the childhood cancer survivors, 60% of the kids may have late effects from the therapies involving infertility, heart failure, and developing a second cancer.

Current State of Funding 
Currently, the primary funding for childhood cancer is through tax dollars via the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
 
In 2011 funding for all cancer was 5.1 billion dollars from the NCI.  Only 196 million of that went to funding for childhood cancer. Even more disturbing, nearly all childhood cancer research relies exclusively on this federal funding, compared to adult cancer that enjoys a 60% additional funding via private sources.

Even the American Cancer Society (ACS) in 2010 donated only $0.01 penny for every dollar of public support to childhood cancer.

Total expenses by the ACS $951,123,000
Total monies directly allocated for childhood cancer 11,900,000

It is clear that real gains towards finding cures in childhood cancer can only be achieved through private funding via foundations like Summer's Way.