Thurs. July 5th
B+ Heroes
Please keep B+ Hero, Miranda Ram-Nolte in your prayers. Miranda is a 16 yr old friend of ours from PA who is recovering from lung surgery (related to osteosarcoma) at MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, TX. Hopefully Miranda will be discharged soon and will be healthy enough for the return trip home. We miss her smiling face around here. Please visit Miranda’s site and leave her a nice message from the B+ Nation.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mirandaramnolte
Another one of our buddies, Zack Turner, is recovering from surgery. Zack was away at Paul Newman’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” camp when he got sick. He returned to DE and had surgery to remove fluid from his heart and some other complications. Zack is a great kid, a BIG Yankees fan, and would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/zackareyturner
Please keep B+ Hero, Nathan Silpath, in your prayers. Nathan, who waved the green flag at our car race in NJ in May, is back undergoing chemotherapy again. Please take a minute or two to leave a note for ‘our’ kids. Thanks.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/nathansilpath
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Creating Hope Act
Over the past few years, childhood cancer fighting organizations like The B+ Foundation have been lobbying elected officials to support the Creating Hope Act (CHA). The CHA was spearheaded by Nancy Goodman of Kids V Cancer who, sadly, lost her son from this world to cancer. Last week, the Creating Hope Act cleared its final hurdle in the Senate and is on its way to the President’s desk for signature. As you may know, there has been only 1 childhood cancer drug approved by the FDA in the last 20 years. The CHA offers an incentive to pharmaceutical companies who heretofore may have been reluctant to pursue childhood cancer drug development because they didn’t see the financial upside or because of the PR risks of developing drugs for children. The CHA offers a voucher to any pharmaceutical company who develops a drug that gets approved by the FDA. In return, the company can use that voucher to fast-track approval of any of its other drugs in the pipeline (or sell the voucher). This acceleration of approval for the next Viagra or Lipitor could be worth hundreds of millions to these pharmaceutical companies. Will this be enough of an incentive to develop drugs to treat/fight childhood cancers? I don’t know….but it’s worth trying! Congratulations to Nancy and Kids V Cancer!
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Thank You Letters from Our Families
“Thank you so much for your recent generosity! The grant money you gave us will go a long way towards helping cover the cost of Laurie’s wig.” Laurie’s Mom
“Thank you for the grant. It was such a blessing. Your foundation is so important to families that experience this. It lets us know there is someone who cares and made a difference for my family. You are an inspiration.” Malique’s Mom
“Thank you for your amazing generosity and remarkable kindness. Through all of our health struggles with our son, my husband lost his job. My son is now disease free (God willing, forever!) and feels blessed to be loved by so many…We have reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for seeing us through the darkness.”
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Local Event
If you’re in DE and can withstand the heat this weekend, come out to the Ice Cream Festival at Rockwood Park. There will be music, vendors, and ice cream from 9 different dairies. There will also be a “Touch-a-Truck” with fire trucks, construction vehicles, and many other types. The organizers are donating a portion of the proceeds to The B+ Foundation.
Thanks for caring about our kids battling childhood cancers. Eventually, there will be enough of us that find kids getting cancer so totally unacceptable that we will experience that tipping point whereby this topic takes root in the center of our country’s consciousness. Until then, we continue to fight doubly hard!
B+
Ali & Andrew’s Dad