To the Greater DIPG/Childhood Brain Cancer Community of Families, Advocates, and Organizations:
We have a unique opportunity to support targeted funding for DIPG and Pediatric Brain Cancer in the FY24 Funding Bill. While the DIPG/Pediatric Brain Cancer Awareness Resolutions will be re-introduced this year as a supportive measure and an ongoing campaign for greater awareness of the urgent, unmet medical needs of children with brain cancer, this is an opportunity to directly accelerate innovation, collaboration and development of effective therapies for children currently facing this terrible fate with targeted funding. The Dear Colleague Letter, which began circulating live today, created by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and Congressman Michael McCaul, is requesting signatures before March 22, for the implementation of this language in the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Bill. This would then be signed into law, a needed precedent for the urgent, unmet needs of children with DIPG and childhood brain cancer.
We hope that you will reach out respectively, and rally all in your orbit concerned with DIPG and childhood brain cancer, for your Congressional Representative in your districts, and in your States to sign the Dear Colleague Letter in support of this legislative language request. This action is for the greater DIPG and Childhood Brain Cancer Community, and as such there is no other “ownership” of this opportunity and its potential success, save the Congressional leaders stepping up on behalf of our children.
Thank you for your kind consideration; we must move quickly! A sample/potential note to be addressed to your lawmakers staff (legislative director, health legislative assistant) is copied below, and a link the the Dear Colleague Letter is also provided below.
Sincerely yours,
Janet Demeter, DIPG Advocacy Group, Jack’s Angels / [email protected]
P.S. resource for Congressional staff: Public resources page of Congressweb.com; click on your state and you should be able to find your Rep. and the Legislative Director’s name. email addresses are generally [email protected]. Feel free to contact us for an excel spreadsheet of Congressional staff, at [email protected].
Sample Letter Template from childhood brain cancer advocates, families, and organizations
(Subject line)Deadline for Signatures: March 22, targeted funding for the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children, childhood brain cancer/DIPG
“Please join us in requesting language in the LHHS appropriations bill to increase awareness of DIPG and a programmatic request in the DoD appropriations bill to strengthen funding for the Department’s Peer-Reviewed Cancer Research Program to improve research for pediatric brain tumors…”
Debbie Dingell, A Member of Congress, Michael McCaul, Member of Congress
________________________________________________________________
Hello,
Please alert Rep. ____ to the Dear Colleague letter below which began circulating today, from the office of Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, co-signed by Congressman Michael McCaul.
Due to the urgent, unmet medical needs of children with brain cancer–the leading cause of cancer related death in children, we are hoping for Rep. ___’s signature to support crucial language in the FY24 bill for more funding to combat the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in children. Where all other avenues to increase awareness have been exhausted, targeted funding can literally speed the advent of effective therapies to reduce suffering and save lives, as there has been no change since the 1960s in standard of care or lack of effective treatments for DIPG, one of the most prolific cancer-related killers of children in the USA.
Deadline for Signatures: March 22
Thank you for your consideration for the hopes of the constituents of State Name ’s district no District, and the tireless work of advocates across the country for the last decade to raise awareness for the urgent unmet medical needs of children with brain cancer in our country today.
Respectfully yours,
Your Name
Organization if applicable
(copy and paste, or attach, Dear Colleague Letter below)
