[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 94 (Thursday, June 27, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5502-S5503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Menendez, Mr. Casey, 
        Mr. Franken, and Ms. Klobuchar):
  S. 1251. A bill to establish programs with respect to childhood, 
adolescent, and young adult cancer; to the Committee on Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined by Senators 
Fischer, Menendez, Casey, Klobuchar and Franken in the introduction of 
the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Reauthorization Act. 
This legislation is an extension of ongoing bipartisan efforts in the 
Senate over the past decade to hopefully one day cure cancers in 
children, adolescents, and young adults.
  I first started working on this issue after meeting the Haight family 
from Warwick, Rhode Island in June of 2004. Nancy and Vincent lost 
their son, Ben, when he was just 9 years old to neuroblastoma, a very 
aggressive tumor in the brain. With the strong support of families like 
the Haights for increased research into the causes of childhood cancers 
and improved treatment options, I introduced legislation that 
eventually was signed into law in 2008 as the Caroline Pryce Walker 
Conquer Childhood Cancer Act.
  Since then, I have worked to secure funding for these efforts, 
including $6 million for the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention, CDC, to improve the ability of state cancer registries to 
rapidly collect information on the diagnosis and treatment information 
of children with cancer, and $1 million for the Secretary of Health and 
Human Services, HHS, to help educate families about treatment options 
and follow-up care.
  Then, last year, I met Grace. Grace, from Providence, RI, is now 10 
years old and is a survivor of medulloblastoma, another type of tumor 
that forms in the brain. Grace and her family reminded me that we must 
do more to ensure biomedical advances can continue so that better 
treatments will become available.
  With Ben and Grace, and their families, in mind, I have been working 
to update the original Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer 
Act.
  As such, the reauthorization we are introducing today would help 
create a comprehensive children's cancer biorepository for researchers 
to use in searching for biospecimens to study, would improve 
surveillance of childhood cancer cases, and would require a study of 
ways to encourage the development of novel treatments.
  I am also pleased to be reintroducing the Pediatric, Adolescent, and 
Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Act. Through increased research and 
advances in medical innovation, the population of survivors of 
childhood cancer has grown from just four percent

[[Page S5503]]

surviving more than five years in 1960 to nearly eighty percent today.
  Unfortunately, even after beating cancer, as many as \2/3\ of 
survivors suffer from late effects of their disease or treatment, 
including second cancers and organ damage. This legislation would 
enhance research on the late effects of childhood cancers, improve 
collaboration among providers so that doctors are better able to care 
for this population as they age, and establish a new pilot program to 
begin to explore models of care for childhood cancer survivors.
  We must do more to ensure that children survive cancer and any late 
effects so they can live a long, healthy, and productive life. I look 
forward to working with Senator Fischer, and our colleagues, to see 
these bills enacted.
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