Children’s Cancer Cause Honors Pediatric Oncology Trailblazers

Pictured, left to right: Steve Wosahla (Children’s Cancer Cause CEO), Adam Rosen (Board Chair), Vickie Buenger (CAC2), Steven Joffe (Univ. of Pennsylvania), Susan Weiner (Children’s Cancer Cause Founder), Susan Scherr (Event Co-Chair, Board Secretary)

In recognition of their extraordinary leadership in combatting childhood cancer, Steven Joffe, MD, MPH, and Vickie Buenger, PhD, recently received special awards from Children’s Cancer Cause at our signature event of the year in New York City. These awards recognize leading advocates helping to achieve progress for the 16,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States and the 500,000 survivors of childhood cancer around the country.

Dr. Joffe, a pediatric oncologist with specialty in the ethical complexities of childhood cancer research, is the recipient of the 2023 Leonard M. Rosen Memorial Research Award. The Rosen Award, now in its eighth year, honors an individual who has made outstanding contributions in the fight against childhood cancer and pays tribute to late Children’s Cancer Cause chairman and founding board member Leonard Rosen. His son Adam L. Rosen, who presented the award, currently serves as Chair of the Children’s Cancer Cause board of directors.

At the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, Dr. Joffe is Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy and the Art and Ilene Penn Professor. A renowned leader in bioethics, Dr. Joffe was elected in 2022 as a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

“Even as we push to try to improve cancer treatments for kids as quickly as we can, one of the things I try to focus on is to ensure we do it in a way that is intentional and respectful and ethical,” said Dr. Joffe in his acceptance remarks. “There’s obviously a ton more work to be done, but [in the past 50 years] we’ve come an incredibly long way. And a critical reason for that is because of advocacy groups like Children’s Cancer Cause. Thousands of kids are alive or living better lives because of everything you do.”

Vickie Buenger received a Special Achievement Award for her dedication to children with cancer and her leadership in establishing the Coalition Against Childhood Cancer (CAC2). When Dr. Buenger’s daughter Erin died in 2009 of neuroblastoma, Vickie helped launch CAC2 to coalesce childhood cancer foundations and individual advocates to increase community collaboration around support, education, research, and advocacy. She is currently president emeritus of CAC2, providing guidance to its more than 230 individual and member organizations and other stakeholders in the childhood cancer community.

“Vickie Buenger is a scholar, a dear colleague, and a compelling advocate for children with cancer. She has accomplished something that some of us thought of but none of us could do, which is to aggregate the grassroots groups into an effective national coalition,” said Susan Weiner, PhD, founder of Children’s Cancer Cause, noting that CAC2 celebrated its ten-year anniversary this year.