On Thursday, April 26th, many of us will gather in front of the Capitol Building in Washington DC at the Life and Breath (LAB) Rally. This is a grassroots effort of lung cancer survivors, caregivers, and advocates. You can follow the event on twitter at @LABLifeBreath and can read about it at labrally.eventbrite.com

Volunteers from several different lung cancer organizations will come together for the following common causes:

• To increase funding for lung cancer research, specifically through the Department of Defense.
• To encourage support for the Women and Lung Cancer Research and Preventive Service Act of 2018.
• To encourage a public service campaign by the Centers for Disease Control to promote lung cancer screening.

As many of us know, lung cancer is the most common cancer killer, taking the lives of over 400 people per day. This is not a political issue, but rather a national emergency. Although lung cancer prevention and smoking cessation campaigns are important, to focus solely on those aspects of the disease perpetuates the myths that lung cancer only affects smokers and that lung cancer risk ends with smoking cessation. In fact, never smokers and patients who have already quit smoking account for approximately three-fourths of all lung cancer patients. Once diagnosed, the 5 year survival rate for lung cancer is only 18%, markedly lower than that of other common cancers. Yet lung cancer research is historically underfunded by the NIH and the Department of Defense. THIS HAS TO CHANGE! With the Life & Breath Rally just around the corner, we will discuss the following in this week’s #LCSM Chat:

T1: What are the details of the @LABlifeBreath Rally? How can people participate if they can’t make it in person?

T2: How can we best advocate for more lung cancer research funding? Which facts should patients and advocates emphasize to their elected officials?

T3: What is the Women and Lung Cancer Research and Preventive Services Act of 2018? What is its purpose and how can we get more people behind it?

T4: Why are so few eligible patients screened for lung cancer by LDCT? What can we do to increase rates of lung cancer screening?

T5: Any final thoughts? What else would you like to see emphasized at the Life and Breath Rally next week?

Please join the #LCSM community and moderator @BrendonStilesMD for this important Chat on Thursday, April 19th, at 8 pm Eastern Time (5 pm Pacific). Please remember to include #lcsm in ALL your tweets so the other chat participants can see them. You can read a primer on participating in the chat here.