Tim Kaine: “While cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children past infancy, childhood cancer and other rare…”

“While cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among children past infancy, childhood cancer and other rare pediatric diseases remain poorly understood. According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 15,590 children and adolescents under the age of 19 will be diagnosed with cancer, and 1,780 will die of the disease in the United States in 2021. This is why I am pleased to be introducing the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act 2.0 with Senators Jerry Moran, Mark R. Warner, and Bill Cassidy. The legislation provides a new source of funding for the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program (Kids First) by redirecting penalties collected from pharmaceutical, cosmetic, supplement, and medical device companies that break the law to pediatric and childhood cancer research. The bill is named in honor of Gabriella Miller, a Leesburg, Virginia resident who died from a rare form of brain cancer at the age of 10. Gabriella was an activist and worked to raise support for research into childhood diseases like cancer until her death in October of 2013. The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program has supported critical research into pediatric cancer and structural birth defects and has focused on building a pediatric data resource combining genetic sequencing data with clinical data from multiple pediatric cohorts.…”