Our community’s advocates made this year’s Virtual Lung Cancer Voices Summit a huge success. Social distancing required us to quickly transition to a virtual advocacy event for 2020, but we rallied and the lung cancer community roared!

Let’s look at some of the numbers:

  • Registered Advocates: 230 including 161 survivors
  • States Represented: 36 plus the District of Columbia
  • Meetings with Senate and Representative Offices: 236

Members of the lung cancer community who were not in attendance supported advocates by using a virtual toolkit containing social media resources, and by sending letters to Congress and letters to the editor at local media outlets.

Our voices were heard!

Specifically, we requested that the Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP), funded at $20 million in Fiscal Year 2009 (FY09) be funded at that level in FY21 through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the Department of Defense (DoD).

Our entire community was invited to attend opening remarks by Laurie Fenton Ambrose, Co-Founder, President and CEO, GO2 for Lung Cancer and keynote remarks from Bonnie J. Addario, Co-Founder, Board Chair, GO2 for Lung Cancer.

Then we launched into a virtual Lung Cancer Living Room on The State of Lung Cancer Today and Impact Amid COVID-19 with two prominent physicians and GO2 for Lung Cancer Scientific Leadership Board members William R. Mayfield, M.D and Jacob Sands, M.D. in discussion with moderators Bonnie J. Addario and Danielle Hicks, GO2 for Lung Cancer’s Chief Patient Officer.

Registered advocates were able to attend several networking sessions, on topics like Advocating for a Love One with Lung Cancer and Lung Cancer Survivors. The first day concluded with GO2 for Lung Cancer’s Elridge Proctor, MPA, Senior Director, Government Affairs & Public Policy, who led advocates through facts, tips, and requests for the next day’s calls with congressional offices.

And those phone calls! Although brief, they were full of compelling advocate stories followed by forceful requests that Members of Congress support new treatments and future cures through increased research funding.

Thank you to every advocate. Your voices spoke out as one!