Pediatric Cancer Isn’t Rare. But Research Funding Still Is.
Every year, an estimated 400,000 children and adolescents worldwide are diagnosed with cancer.1 In the United States alone, an estimated 14,910 children and teens were diagnosed with cancer in 2024 and 1,590 will lose their lives to the disease.
That makes cancer the leading cause of death by disease after infancy for U.S. children.2 And it’s not just a tragic constant, it’s a growing crisis. Childhood cancer incidence has been rising steadily, by nearly 1% each year since the 1970s.3
The Funding Gap No One Talks About
At Cannonball Kids’ cancer Foundation (CKc), we see the urgent need for research funding every single day and the heartbreaking reality that we can’t meet all of it.
Over the past four years, we’ve awarded an average of $515,000 annually to groundbreaking pediatric cancer research. But the requests we receive are six times greater, averaging $3 million per year. And the gap is widening.
This year? We received $6.9 million in requests, that’s up from $2.5 million two years ago while our available funding has stayed relatively flat.
Every unfunded proposal with scientific merit represents the potential of a trial delayed, a promising therapy left unexplored, and ultimately, lives that could be saved but aren’t.
Federal Cuts Threaten to Make Things Worse
Despite a proposed increase in overall federal spending, pediatric cancer research is facing devastating proposed cuts:
- 25% cut to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)4
- 38–40% cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)5
- 37% cut to the National Cancer Institute (NCI)6; the lowest level since 2002!7
And here’s the part that most people don’t realize: pediatric cancer research already accounts for only 4% of the NIH’s total cancer research budget.8 In other words, kids are already getting a tiny slice of the pie and these cuts would shrink it even further.
This is why private foundations and philanthropists are not just helpful, they are essential. Without them, much of the most promising pediatric cancer research would never make it out of the lab.
Why This Matters
Pediatric cancer isn’t rare. It’s real, it’s growing, and it robs thousands of children of their futures every year. But research funding, both private and federal, remains desperately insufficient.
At CKc, we believe kids deserve better. They deserve treatments designed for their bodies, not adult drugs repurposed for children. They deserve survival rates that rise, not flatline. And they deserve to have their lives valued as much as anyone else’s.
How You Can Help
We can’t control federal budgets, but we can choose to close the gap ourselves. Every dollar we raise funds innovative research, clinical trials, and the possibility of a cure for a child who needs it today, not decades from now.
Because pediatric cancer isn’t rare. But research funding still is. And that’s something we can change.
