More than 18-hundred shoes have been laid on the front lawn of parliament house in Canberra representing the death toll from brain tumours. The 'head to the hill' demonstration is the first of its kind in Australia to highlight the plight of people with brain tumours.
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00:00 Brain tumours are a relatively rare cancer, but the survival rates are incredibly low.
00:08 More than 1800 people are diagnosed with brain tumours every year.
00:12 More than 1500 people in Australia die.
00:15 Today's Head to Heel event at Parliament House is to bring to light the horrible death toll
00:20 of brain tumours.
00:22 It's the leading cause of death from cancer for people under 40.
00:25 And while thankfully the death toll from other cancers like breast cancer and prostate cancer
00:31 has improved, the reality for this community is that brain cancer survival rates haven't
00:36 improved in the last 30 years.
00:39 Another brutal statistic is the economic cost.
00:43 Brain cancer has the highest burden of care for young people, with a cost of $1.7 million.
00:50 But of course the biggest impact is on the patients themselves and their families and
00:54 friends.
00:55 There's no other treatments.
00:56 There's surgery, chemo and radiation.
00:59 That's it.
01:00 There's no new trials.
01:01 There's no new drugs.
01:02 So I think that's what we're here advocating for.
01:05 More research, more trials so we can get people to survive longer than 12 months or 5 years.
01:11 Obviously the long term goal is to find some sort of cure, but in the meantime advocates
01:16 are here at Parliament House calling for more research, more funding and overall more recognition
01:23 for the disease that kills so many.
01:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]