We all know the reasons.
The Reasons
The Problem
Is there anybody out there?
Pink Floyd, The Wall, 1979
A sickeningly gorgeous song from a horrifically beautiful album. The song I played on my guitar for my girlfriend after her grandmother’s funeral. The album that echoed in my mind during the darkest moments of my life.
Yet, the despair and hopelessness a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, a brother, a sister, or a friend feels when a child is diagnosed with cancer is a moment I cannot pretend to understand.
In 2024, the U.S. Congress granted the National Cancer Institute
a sum of $7.22 billion to support cancer research [1].
Notably, even with that large sum of money, childhood cancer research is a small proportion of the total funding. The Little Warriors Foundation notes that a mere 4%, or approximately $250 million, is designated to pediatric cancer research [2].
This explains the countless organizations existing to support childhood cancer.
These organizations include CURE Childhood Cancer [3], the well known St. Jude’s organization [4], and countless more. CURE contributed $743,973 to 1,175 families in crisis, as well as $1.67 million in research funding last year. St. Jude’s, despite their enormous size as an organization, can still only provide free treatment to 8,000 children across a range of diseases, not exclusive to cancer.
This has left a sizable gap in pediatric cancer support, noted by my calculations of 16,000 children and their families paying $35,000 for treatment after insurance.
Where does this $35,000 treatment cost arise? Shockingly, if insurance did not exist, treatment would cost the family $850,000 [5]. For the hate healthcare insurance companies receive (albeit some may be well deserved), the fundamental idea of insurance is an essential aspect to the modern, mostly efficient healthcare system within the United States.
Advanced treatments require billions in funding, distributing millions to labs and scientists for their research, and then requiring hundreds of thousands to implement the new technology or drug within the clinic. A single year's worth of anti-cancer drugs cost upwards of $150,000 alone [5].
All that matters today is that within the United States, we have cutting edge tools, a system that substantially, but only partially assists families enduring hardship, and a problem of $35,000 to solve.
The Answer
The problem at the surface is: Families must pay for their child’s cancer treatment.
But that’s not what we are really solving. I’d argue what Cheese Bank aims to do is answer the question posed at the start of this page: “Is there anybody out there?” We get to answer: “Yes.” We are here, alongside the hundreds of other organizations and thousands of good hearted people already at work.
Cheese Bank just wants to push this effort over the finish line. What awaits us past that finish line?
I don’t have to be the first to tell you that a mother or father of a child diagnosed with cancer doesn’t give two rat’s asses about money from that point forward. They’d give anything in the world to see their son or daughter healthy again. Yet, the fundamental workings of society require that they carry on paying for food, housing, insurance, parking, gas, phone billings, clothes...
The unexpected financial burden of cancer treatment leads to 1 in 4 families losing 40% of their annual income. 10-15% of families who were not poor prior to diagnosis will classify as such after the cost of treatment [6]. An innocent child, who is already ill and tired, shouldn’t have to feel the tension of their parents stressing about making ends meet.
Even more so, the child should never feel as if they are the reason for their families hardship.
As previously mentioned, countless organizations aid in financial support, while others specifically hope to support the child themselves. Such as Make-A-Wish, being well known for helping children gain unique experiences within a world they deserved to be in for the next 70 or more years [7]. We want to take all of these ideas to the next level by working in tandem with the already established support network.
Cheese Bank would attempt to ensure that families feel zero to minimal financial effects of pediatric cancer by paying for the entirety of after insurance expenses.
Skipped shifts to go to a doctor's appointment no longer affect the family. No more parents draining retirement savings to keep their child alive. No more parents lying awake wondering how they’ll afford next month’s medication. No more $35,000 treatment costs. More stability for siblings whose lives are often disrupted during treatment. More trips to Disney World with the money they save. More opportunities for children to simply be children again.
The Reason For You
Perhaps you don’t have a child, like myself. Maybe you never plan to have children.
Why should you care?
From birth to adolescence, something we have all experienced, cancer remains in the top three leading causes of death [8]. Regardless of your parental status, I think it would be profoundly satisfying and rewarding as an individual to be one of countless others that came together to pay for childhood cancer treatment forever.
Imagine being part of the generation to make the treatment of a top three risk of death for a child completely free for the foreseeable future.
Continue to The Spreadsheets to get a deep dive into the methodology and thoughts behind Cheese Bank.
If that doesn’t interest you, continue to The Reality to further your journey with Cheese Bank.