What if there was a world where every kid with cancer was given the chance to fight for a brighter and more fulfilling life? What if we had the power to make that world a reality? Last year, Congress held this power in its hands. They had the opportunity to pass the Give Kids a Chance Act, which would allow companies to study pediatric cancer and develop life-saving drugs to ultimately give children the same chance as adults at living cancer-free lives. However, on Dec. 18, 2024, the House of Representatives was threatened on social media by Elon Musk. Representatives were warned that they could be pushed out of office if they voted in favor of the end-of-year package that included the Give Kids a Chance Act and three other important acts relating to pediatric cancer. The next day, the bill was crushed by the House before it could even come to a vote, reverting the efforts of patient advocates to square one.
The most recent version of the Give Kids a Chance Act bill was introduced into the House on Feb. 12 and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The counterpart was introduced into the Senate on March 11 and referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The bill in the House is sponsored by 132 members of Congress, roughly equal across party lines, and the Senate bill has six sponsors.
On the afternoon of March 28, members of Tufts Project SHARE— a group that works to spreading health access, resources and education — organized a tabling event in the Mayer Campus Center to raise awareness for the Give Kids a Chance Act. The event aimed to both educate fellow Tufts students about the significance of the bill and to encourage them to advocate in favor of it to their federal representatives. We engaged students with informative materials, answered questions about the bill’s implications and guided students through the process of sending letters of support to their legislators. By the end of the two-hour event, over 50 students had written and submitted letters urging their federal legislators to support the Give Kids a Chance Act. While the event demonstrated Tufts students’ passion for advocacy and commitment to bettering the U.S. healthcare system, it also contributed to the growing grassroots support for the bill.
The Project SHARE Civic Advocacy Committee is calling on students, researchers and community members to join us in the fight to ensure that children with cancer gain access to the most promising treatments available. We’re advocating for stronger support of pediatric cancer research, particularly for clinical trials that explore life-saving combination therapies. But this is not a mission we can accomplish alone. We need others to stand with us. We urge fellow students and community leaders to help us build pressure on policymakers to pass the Give Kids a Chance Act, a critical piece of legislation that could expand access to combination trials for pediatric patients. We call on pharmaceutical companies, researchers and clinicians to collaborate with advocacy groups like ours to prioritize children’s lives in the development of new therapies. And we invite anyone passionate about health equity to help us organize workshops, lead educational campaigns and push for the systemic change these kids deserve.
This isn’t just Project SHARE’s work — it should be all of ours.
Sincerely,
Sophomores Sydney Barr, Carolina Dickovick, Marco Salembini, Lena Tang and Dan Bahar; and juniors Max Penzer and Anand Patil
Project SHARE Civic Advocacy Committee
