‘What Can We Do?’ CNN’s Jake Tapper Shines a Star-Studded Spotlight on Children’s Cancer
Anyone who follows CNN’s Jake Tapper on social media might have seen that he was at Kansas City’s Big Slick this past weekend, joining a slew of celebrities raising awareness — and millions of dollars — for a great cause.
Tapper mingled with the celebrity founders of Big Slick, Jason Sudeikis, Rob Riggle, and Paul Rudd for a weekend full of events, performances, auctions, and more that pulled in $3.9 million benefiting Children’s Mercy in Kansas City. To date, Big Slick has raised over $25 million, thanks to people willing to part with money to watch Will Forte jump into a fountain in his socks and sing a downright sultry verse of James Ingram’s hit song “Just Once”:
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A great performance for a great cause! And good on Philadelphia Eagles fan Tapper making nice with Kansas City for a weekend!
On Monday’s episode of The Lead, Tapper welcomed Nancy Goodman, the founder and executive director of KidsvCancer.org, which pushes for government funding for pediatric cancer research. He cited some sobering statistics about the lack of attention being paid to children’s cancer: “Pediatric cancer accounts for four percent of the National Cancer Institute budget, less than one percent of the biopharma industry’s research and development budgets, and in the last 30 years, the FDA has approved 200 adult cancer drugs, compared to six for kids.” Which had Tapper asking Goodman: “Why, and what can we do?”
She responded:
It’s such a great question, and especially it’s such a great question because we do care so much about kids. You know, there are as many children’s cancers as there are adult cancers, Jake. And so really, the National Cancer Institute should spend half their budget on children’s cancers and half their budget on adult cancers, right? So I think part of it is culture. I think just having these conversations and talking about it really is going to matter. And we just have to increase the NCI budget. You know, it’s not it’s not where it needs to be. Where the money is, the money’s in private sector, in biopharmaceuticals. And so there, you know, we need Congress to pass some laws to require industry and incentivize industry to do more to study kids cancers.
That’s just the short answer. For the longer answer, watch the full interview via CNN, but also visit KidsvCancer.org.
