On the occasion of Gold September, Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, with the GRAVIR* Collective, we mobilized many players who joined our fight by wearing the golden ribbon. A huge THANK YOU to all for their commitment and a special THANK YOU to our big-hearted godmother, the Patrouille de France.
During this month of mobilization, we challenged politicians in France on the cause of childhood cancer and in particular the lack of funding for research, and the need to mobilize on several aspects of patient monitoring.
This mobilization has borne results: we were invited by Michel Lauzzana, MP & President of the cancer group at the French National Assembly, for a meeting on the French and European news of pediatric cancers, in the presence of several MPs including Eric Woerth and European MP Véronique Trillet-Lenoir . We were thus able to reiterate our requests to the government: the sustainability and monitoring of the annual budget of 5 million Euros dedicated to basic research in pediatric oncology; the establishment of long-term monitoring structures for patients; the training of new specialized skills in onco-pediatrics (onco-geneticists, pediatric radiologists, specialized anesthesiologists, etc.).
THANKS to the MPs present for these discussions and THANKS to Michel Lauzzana for organizing this virtual meeting. In these difficult times of fundraising for associations, which are the biggest funders of pediatric cancer research, the French government support in the coming months will be decisive.
* The GRAVIR collective was created in July 2017 and brings together health professionals, patient and parent associations, cancer research foundations and citizen awareness movements. Its objective is to alert the public and the various stakeholders to the urgent need to act faster and better, in terms of diagnosis, care, treatment and monitoring of childhood and youth cancer.
