Thanks for coming here in Briggs's memory. A challenge to get signatures has been taken by, among others, Rafael Nadal, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Rod Laver, Nick Kyrgios, and Bear Grylls. Ten squash greats have made videos including Aussie 5-time World champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald and British legend Nick Matthew OBE. These two paragraphs are from an article I've written to spread it to soccer:

"Rafael Nadal was nominated by a boy who lost a leg to cancer, Marc, who made two videos. In his first he did 253 volleys, when the challenge is only 30. His mother Marie-Jo realized later that he’d gone through 252 days of chemo. She told me it was worse than the amputation.

The then-CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, who's taken the challenge, emailed me about Marc, 'What a tough little cookie.' If the history of cancer treatment had gone differently, he might not have needed to be. In an article for the Medical Journal of Australia’s MJA InSight, I wrote that his overall type of cancer, sarcoma, was being cured with immunotherapy over a century ago at a major New York hospital."

Immunotherapy has finally come full circle in part because the first two of the professors listed above won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their advances in it. Another of the professors co-led development of an immunotherapy that helped put former president Jimmy Carter's stage IV melanoma into remission a decade ago after he'd given up hope.

In that MJA InSight article, I also cited an immunotherapy that may have saved Alan Rickman. Briggs and I'd had contact with Alan through our playwriting. It brought a remission in stage IV pancreatic cancer as far back as 2005, the same kind that took congressman John Lewis, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, and before them Patrick Swayze, yet still isn't in development.

I've written other articles on my campaign and immunotherapy for Fortune and HuffPost, one of which Stand Up to Cancer shared, and a senior White House advisor shared excerpts from a book I wrote about Briggs with their Cancer Moonshot team. I write in it that there was a colorectal immunotherapy that might have saved her but a chemo-centric drug company had bought the rights. I tried for a year to get access to it in time. 

Just four days before I lost Briggs to medical errors, I got word that a legendary broadcast journalist was going to personally appeal to the CEO of the company. Governments prioritizing this new era can significantly reduce hospitalizations, during which not only medical errors but infections are so common, with cancer patients particularly vulnerable. Medical errors alone have been estimated to be the third-leading cause of death in the U.S.

In the tennis-to-soccer article, I write that immunotherapy has also worked in resistant children's leukemia and a previously incurable type of childhood brain/central nervous system cancer. Part of why I thought soccer pros would take up the challenge is because Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand lost his first wife Rebecca to breast cancer at 34 in 2015. Advanced breast cancer in women under 40 has risen every year for 20 years. 

In 2018 researchers at the U.S. National Cancer Institute used immunotherapy to save a 49-year-old woman with terminal breast cancer, a world first, but it's since had just one small ongoing trial. Tens of billions are needed at this turning point. Over 600,000 Americans a year are dying. Globally, 27,000 women, children, and men a day, most after going through their version of the absolute misery Briggs was put through with current treatment.

Join us in calling on Congress and governments worldwide (who have the wherewithal) to adequately fund research and development of the safest, most potentially curative immunotherapies in all cancers.

(The sign box is up to the right of the petition.)

~Paul

• Join legends including Rafael Nadal, Chris Evert, and Rod Laver in the Volleying Challenge for Briggs's Petition
• I've also begun a petition to put Briggs and her beautiful smile on the cover of TIME as the face of this new era. Over 40,000 people have signed: Put Briggs on the Cover of TIME
• If you've read Briggs: Love, Cancer, and the Medical Profession, comments to build awareness would helpfully reach more people on the kindle/paperback page: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0089PD2EO.