Political Quotes

“I rise today to submit legislation with my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, to designate the month of May 2010 as National Brain Tumor Awareness Month. An estimated 612,000 Americans have been diagnosed and are living with a brain tumor. Brain tumors do not discriminate. Primary brain tumors--those that begin in the brain and tend to stay in the brain-- occur in people of all ages, but are statistically more frequent in children and adults. Metastatic brain tumors--those that begin as a cancer elsewhere in the body and spread to the brain--are more common in adults than in children. Whether malignant or benign, brain tumors can be life threatening. They are the leading cause of death from solid tumors in children under the age of 20, and are the third leading cause of death from cancer in young adults between the ages of 20 and 39. The treatment of brain tumors is complicated by the existence of more than 120 different types of brain tumors. Treatment is further complicated by the location of these tumors and other obstacles to their treatment or complete surgical removal. While important advances have been made in understanding brain tumors, daunting obstacles remain to the development of new treatments. Moreover, there currently are no strategies for the screening or early detection of brain tumors.”