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Washington, DC -- Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) hosted a roundtable on Saturday with children who have faced or are currently facing childhood cancer, as part of a series of roundtables highlighting the need for passage of Wexton’s bipartisan Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act 2.0.

You can watch the full roundtable here

“It was important for me to have a ‘Faces of Childhood Cancer’ roundtable because the name of this bill is the Gabriella Miller ‘Kids First’ Research Act 2.0,” said Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton. “Children with cancer or other rare diseases don't often have the ability to share their experiences, thoughts, and needs. I wanted to provide a platform for some amazing kids to tell us their reality and what they want the public to know about children with cancer. I held my first roundtable of this series on January 26th, and in the short 73 days between that event and this one, it’s estimated that 3,358 children have been diagnosed with cancer and at least 511 children have died in the United States alone.”

Congresswoman Wexton was joined by Ellyn Miller, a Virginia-10 constituent who is the mother of Gabriella, the namesake of the legislation who died of brain cancer at age 10 in 2013, as well as children who shared their stories about living with cancer: Hannah Adams, Megan Bugg, Grace Eline, Cole Eicher, and Caoilinn McLane.

Wexton invited the children to share their message for lawmakers about childhood cancer, including showing a video from Gabriella emphasizing that now is the time to “stop talking, start doing,” shortly before she passed away. The panelists spoke about the lack of resources allocated towards research for children-specific treatments and cures, the bipartisan nature of this important issue, and how childhood cancer is an indiscriminate disease which can impact any young person.

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