Battling Brain Tumors Help Americans – And Your Constituents: 3 Ways Congress Can Help the Brain Tumor Community in 2015 A Cause for All of Us Indeed, the fight against brain tumors should be everyone’s cause. Anyone can get a brain tumor including persons of any age, race, gender or ethnic origin. There is currently no standard prevention or early detection measures, and very few effective treatments and no cure exist. Adults and Children Impacted Tragically, malignant brain tumors are among the deadliest cancers with just a 34% five-year relative survival rate. And brain tumors are now the leading cause of cancer death in children under the age of 14. Even those with a benign brain tumor face a potentially life-threatening disease and may suffer from chronic neurological problems. Elizabeth and Lauren are among the many we honor and remember for their battle, and Owen is one of the people currently living with a brain tumor that we fight for everyday. The Need to Leverage “Precision Medicine” Should you be discouraged? No! We hope you’ll be inspired and determined to help our cause. Thanks to previous investment by Congress the era of precision medicine is here, now it is time to leverage it. National Brain Tumor Society “asks” Congress to fight brain tumors by: 1.Support an increase in FY 2016 Appropriations for the National Institutes of Health to $33 billion and the National Cancer Institute to $5.4 billion. 2.Support continued inclusion of pediatric brain tumors as an eligible topic for research in the Peer Review Cancer Research Program within the Defense Department’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. 3.Support legislation to help make anti-cancer medications more affordable such as the Cancer Treatment Parity Act (Sens. Kirk/ Franken) and the Cancer Drug Coverage Parity Act (Rep. Higgins) expected to be introduced shortly. For more information contact: David F. Arons, National Brain Tumor Society, [email protected]. www.braintumor.org 4/2015