Take Action: Childhood Cancer STAR Act

STAR Act

 

UPDATE 12/9/2016: Thank you to all of the advocates who reached out to their Senators to urge passage of the STAR Act. Unfortunately, a vote in the Senate will not take place this year. This is not the end, as the effort will begin again in 2017.


 

UPDATE: On December 6, 2016, the US House of Representatives passed the STAR Act. Now the US Senate must act before they adjourn at the end of this week! We need your help to make this happen.

You can take action by:

  • Calling your Senator and asking them to pass the STAR Act before they adjourn. Contact information for Senators can be found at http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/. We especially need people in the following states to reach out to their Senators: Kentucky, Tennessee, Washington, Nevada, Utah, North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

Tips for Calls to your Senator:

Say you are a constituent and tell them to please pass the STAR Act this week. Kids with cancer need them to take action!
If you have time, mention why this is important to you in 1 minute or less.

  • Posting on social media. Make sure that you tag your Senator and use the hashtags #STARAct and #Childhood Cancer. Tweeting to your Senator is even easier if you use this site: http://www.soundoffatcongress.org/enlF. All you need to do is enter your zip code and your email address and it will find your Senators and help you generate a tweet.

Sample Tweets:

House has passed the Childhood Cancer
STAR Act (HR3381)! It’s time for Senate to act!
@SenateMajLdr @SenatorReid @SenAlexander
@PattyMurray

.@ SENATOR Kids with Cancer need you to Pass the
#STARAct this week.

  • Sharing this call to action with your friends and family. Every single contact helps!

More information about the STAR Act can be found here: Alliance for Childhood Cancer Summary of the STAR Act


 

We need your help!  Time is running out for Congress to take up The Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research (STAR) Act.  The STAR Act would expand opportunities for childhood cancer research, improve efforts to identify and track childhood cancer incidences, enhance the quality of life for childhood cancer survivors, and ensure publicly accessible expanded access policies that provide hope for patients who have run out of options. Learn more about the STAR Act here.

Two op-eds urging passage of the STAR Act have been published.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/294476-congress-should-come-together-to-help-kids-with-cancer

http://www.mlive.com/opinion/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2016/09/we_need_to_build_better_resear.html#incart_river_home

 

STAR ActThe good news is that 250 members of the House of Representatives have signed on to co-sponsor the legislation. This shows that there is wide, bi-partisan support for the most comprehensive childhood cancer bill ever introduced in Congress.  The bad news is that a hearing has yet to be scheduled on the STAR Act.  This is where we need your help.

  • Take a look at the list of co-sponsors.  If your member of Congress is on the list, please contact them to thank them for their support and ask them to urge the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold a hearing to approve the bill and send it to the full House for a vote.
  • If your member of Congress isn’t on the list, please contact them to ask them to join the hundreds of other legislators who have signed on.
  • You can find your member’s information using the Directory of Representatives. Not sure who your member of Congress is? You can enter your zip code and find out here: http://ziplook.house.gov/htbin/findrep

With sarcoma representing about 15 percent of all childhood cancer cases, this is an important piece of legislation for the sarcoma community. Thank you for being an advocate for children with sarcoma and for all children with cancer!