Neighbor Tuesday: Asking for some help

The NIH changes and executive orders have finally hit my team.

If you’re new here, welcome! During my day job, I’m a professor at Duke and study the intersection of children’s cancer and poverty. If you would have told me 20 years ago that I would be doing this job, I wouldn’t have believed you. I mean it when I say it’s beyond my wildest dreams to get to do what I do, and I don’t take one day for granted. I continue to be gobsmacked at this work and that I get to take a small part in making this world a better place.

If you’re a long-time reader here, you know that my work takes me to incredible places like Tanzania, El Salvador, Somaliland, and Sudan to name a few. (Here’s a picture of me and my hubs on a work trip to Tanzania. Do you see Mt. Kilimanjaro saying hi in the distance! If it looks like I’m over the moon, it’s because I was. This was the first trip I took after I was sick for so long and wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to travel like this again. So, this trip (you can read about it here) was full of grateful-tears and full-face-smiles - evidenced by said picture. Well, nearly all of my trips are full of that as well. But, this one was doubly special.)

Let me tell you about what I do there.

In the US, 90% of children with cancer will live because of available treatment and access to care. In low-income countries, only 10% will live, with 90% dying because of the lack of treatment and access. This 90-10 children-cancer-disparity is one of the starkest in global health. In Tanzania, and in many other low-income countries, most children start their cancer treatments too late because their parents couldn’t afford the lodging or transportation costs to get to the hospital. Often, families live hours and hours away from the nearest hospital that can provide cancer treatment. So, you can imagine that it incurs lots of costs for the families for the transportation, food, lodging, and childcare just to get to that treatment.

Often times, these families have to then make a decision between cancer care for one child and feeding the rest. An impossible decision and one that no family should have to make.

In my work, I want to make that decision obsolete.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

And, it takes a team to do that. When I’ve told you about going to the United Nations to advocate for universal health coverage for children or working in Somaliland and Tanzania and El Salvador on children’s cancer and surgical care or the stories about evaluating how to protect families from poverty in conflict zones, that work is made possible by my incredible team.

My team is not huge. (But, you bet they are mighty!) In the US, I have a full-time project manager who works magic to get *everything* done and organized. She’s incredibly smart, hard-working, does all of the data analysis, writes manuscripts, and whatever else we need. And, she does it with the kindest and most neighboring heart there is. Not once has she complained at the work. And, a major bonus is I count her as one of my favorite friends. She gets done what would take several other people to do, she does it in excellence, and we have the best time doing it together. Magic, indeed! By far, she is the best employee I’ve ever had.

My other team members are in-country and are just as magical! They do all of the data collection work and a good bit of the analytic work. They are the backbone and foundation of our goal to make sure children can get the medical treatment they need, and that it doesn’t bankrupt the child’s family to get there. My team consists of mothers (with new babies!), mentee-turned-employee-extradoinaire, fathers, students, and PhD academics in other countries. They have families to feed and children to send to school.

And, I risk losing them if funding doesn’t come through.

Many of you have sent me messages and asked how you can help with the federal NIH funding freezes and the foreign aid freezes. My team is ~80% funded through NIH grants (including me), and the first few funding freezes and executive orders spared my team. But, that all changed this week. This week, NIH halted funding of all international activities that were done in partnership with a US-based institution (like Duke). So, this means that I will no longer be able to pay my team, hire my team, or keep my team employed through NIH funding once my current funding runs out - simply because of where they live and where the work is happening. But the work is happening there because that’s where the need is the most for these kids with cancer. Without that work (and lots of other NIH-funded work in these countries), children will die. I’m not sure how to say that any softer because that’s just the reality. 90% of these kids with cancer in low-income countries will die without treatment. My team is there to help them live.

In other words - My work is now smack dab in the middle of the freezes and changes. So, I decided to ask for help in keeping my team afloat. I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for my incredibly small and mighty team of global health neighbors.

I know that I am one of a myriad of people trying to do neighboring-work in a world that’s set up to do the opposite. So many of us (including several of those reading this) are now needing help keeping the neighboring-work we do going. So, thanks for considering mine.

Help us make children’s cancer care a reality in places that need it the most.

If you’re interested, here’s a website with a donation link. We set up a fund through Duke so all donations are tax-deductible.

In solidarity,

Emily

PS: For other ways to donate via check or QCD:

If sending a check, please make the check payable to Duke University, but include “Emily Smith - Global Children's Cancer Fund - 391001207” on the memo line or in an included note. You can send the check to:

Duke Children's Development (Duke Children's Hospital)

300 W. Morgan Street, Suite 1000

Durham, NC 27701

If donating via QCD, Duke’s tax EIN is 56-0532129.

For any questions, you can email globalhealth.giving@duke.edu and emily.smith1@duke.edu and we can help get your donation to the right place.