First, it often starts with a little pain, and the pain keeps growing more and more extreme, day by day until the parents hear these terrifying five words: "Your child has cancer." Every day, 43 children would have their childhood taken away by cancer. Since 1980, only fewer than ten new drugs have been approved that were specifically developed to treat children with cancer. The pharmaceutical industry put in a lot of investment for drug development in adult cancers. Evidently, in the last 20 years, 190 new cancer treatments for adults have been discovered, comparing to roughly ten drugs for childhood cancer use. For the investment and effort in childhood cancer drug development? Almost none because they see that childhood cancer makes up a small portion of the total cancer patient population, which makes the investment in childhood cancer not profitable. Besides the ignorance of the pharmaceutical companies, the lack of clinical trials for new drug developments was also due to the low funding from the government through the National Cancer Institute. According to the NCI Funded Research Portfolio, the average percentage of invested funds into childhood cancer is 4% for over the past 10 years.
Many pediatric cancer patients get treated with drugs invented for usage in adults. Due to the toxic substances exposed to their growing body as a child, the recovery was a bittersweet thing, when they often develop several chronic health issues and even another type of cancer later in life. Yes, there are fewer cases of pediatric cancer diagnosed. Yes, it's true more adults indeed get cancer than children. However, by putting more effort into finding more treatment options and safer chemotherapy chemicals for childhood cancer, we can save all those years when a kid could grow up and have a future, with their dreams and passion. No child deserves to have their childhood and the beautiful innocence of a child taken away.

The purpose of this petition is:

• Spreading aware about the current issue in the pharmaceutical industry. The message that we want to spread is that lives of childhood cancer patients worth more than profits. 
• Better regulate the pharmaceutical companies to protect  cancer patients' interest
• Stop treating cancer like a huge money-making opportunity. Although childhood cancer makes up a small portion of the total cancer patients population, childhood cancer isn't rare. And childhood cancer patients' lives matter!
• Putting in our voice into the fight for better funding in childhood cancer. Children are worth more than 4% of the funding budget!