If interested, please sign the petition to show interest to merchandisers in products that would display the Gold Ribbon on them. The Gold Ribbon stands for Childhood Cancer Awareness, as pink does for breast cancer. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, yet I have not heard that mentioned anywhere. I am glad that Breast Cancer receives the attention it does, as it is such a horrible disease. I would like for Childhood Cancer to receive similar recognition.

According to http://www.candlelighters.org/factsheets.stm,

• Approximately 12,400 are diagnosed with cancer each year.
• In 1998, about 2500 died of cancer.
• About one in 300 boys and one in 333 girls will develop cancer before the age of 20.

Even for those 250,000 children who do survive their journey with cancer, there are risks from the very treatments that helped save them.

Some examples of late effects after cure from childhood cancer are:

• Breast cancer at an early age in female Hodgkin's survivors who received radiation to their chest when children or adolescents. Their risk is about 15 to 20 times that of their peers who have not had Hodgkin's disease.
• Heart disease after treatment with chemotherapy (anthracyclines) or high-dose chest radiation.
• Learning disabilities in survivors treated with radiation and/or chemotherapy to the brain.
• Second cancers related to chemotherapy drugs or radiation used to cure the first cancer. Survivor’s risk is over 6 times that of their peers who have not had childhood cancer.
• Symptoms of posttraumatic stress syndrome in survivors and their parents.

Please, if you can, if you are interested, sign the petition. Children's Cancer does deserve awareness and support. Thanks.


http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/gold-ribbon-support-for-childrens-cancer-on-consumer-products