Cinco Vidas

It’s hard enough finding out your child has cancer. What if you discovered that some of the pesticides you’d been using in your home could have had something to do with it?

A study by researchers at the Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center found just such a link—a higher level of common household pesticides in the urine samples of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). “In our study,” said lead investigator Offie Soldin, Ph.D., “we compared urine samples from children with ALL and their mothers with healthy children and their moms. We found elevated levels of common household pesticides more often in the mother-child pairs affected by cancer.” (more…)

“Just once, I want to look really good,” says Kate, one of the main characters in the new movie, My Sister’s Keeper. “I look like a freak!”

The movie, based on Jodi Picoult’s novel of the same name, tracks a family’s journey through Kate’s acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Each is affected in a unique way, from the older brother who becomes almost invisible to his driven parents, to the younger sister who was genetically engineered to donate blood and bone marrow to her sick sibling. The movie is very powerful, and we strongly recommended it to anyone. (more…)