Thursday, October 28, 2010

Letter to the Editor

You know what? Between Marie Claire and the NY Times, I'm beginning to wonder if our nation's editors are drinking on the job.

Check out The Age of Alzheimer's and let me know what you think about the last paragraph. Thanks to our friends at PAC2 who brought the article to our attention.

Here's what I thought:

Dear NY Times,

I appreciate that "The Age of Alzheimer's" is listed under "opinion," but when Ms. O'Connor writes: "Medical science has the capacity to relegate Alzheimer’s to the list of former diseases like typhoid, polio and many childhood cancers," I need her to know that childhood cancer is STILL here and there is currently only a 78% cure rate for ALL childhood cancers combined. Perhaps she should rewrite the piece to replace "childhood cancers" with "Bubonic plague."

This isn't opinion; it's fact.

It saddens me that something like this was read by a thousands and thousands of people, and the majority of those will believe that we have eradicated some forms of childhood cancer. As parents of children fighting cancer, or those who have died from it, our journey to raise awareness for the disease (which kills more children than any other childhood disease COMBINED) is unintentionally sabotaged by things like Ms. O'Connor's piece.

How can we secure funding for this shockingly underfunded disease when people aren't aware that this is killing our kids?

Children DO get cancer. 1 in 5 of these will die. 3 out of 5 will suffer long-term side effects. The former Justice can easily pull up all of these facts by doing a simple Google search.

Sincerely,
Christy Griffith

Do YOU have an opinion you'd like to share with the NY Times? Email editorial@nytimes.com and let them know your thoughts. You know, like how excited you are that childhood cancer is a thing of the past.

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