Stel Bailey | Investigative Journalist

Strength in Numbers: Parents of Children with Cancer Gather in Washington

The crowd in Freedom Plaza carried a heavy silence, broken only by the sound of mothers and fathers sharing stories that no parent should have to tell. Many held photos of smiling children whose futures had been rewritten by cancer; others held hand-painted signs demanding answers from the agencies meant to protect them. Beneath the hum of traffic and the shadow of federal buildings, families stood together to confront what they had come to believe was the unspoken truth: contamination had invaded their communities, and government silence had allowed it to spread.

Among them was Charlie Smith, who carried the story of his son Trevor. At thirteen, Trevor was diagnosed with brain cancer, one of five children in their small Idaho town to receive the same grim diagnosis. As Smith and other parents searched for answers, they uncovered the haunting history of a massive 1994 forest fire that burned across an abandoned mine site, scattering toxins that had never been cleaned up. Trevor’s struggle became the inspiration for Trevor’s Law, passed in 2016, which requires federal support for communities facing contamination and demands investigation into the causes of childhood cancer.

Cancer is now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States. About 1,000 suspected cancer clusters are reported to state health departments every year, and yet most agencies remain focused on treatment rather than prevention. Children, far smaller and more vulnerable than adults, absorb toxins more readily. The risks often begin before birth: a mother who drinks water contaminated with lead may unknowingly pass the damage to her child in the form of brain injury or developmental disorders. Scientists have long known that gene mutations caused by chemicals, radiation, and other pollutants can increase cancer risks. For families gathered in D.C., the frustration was not about a lack of evidence but about a lack of action.

Kari Rhinehart knew that frustration intimately. A registered nurse from Johnson County, Indiana, she founded If it Was Your Child after losing her 13-year-old daughter Emma to a rare brain tumor in 2014. In her community, 68 children had been diagnosed with cancer in the past decade, a pediatric cancer rate more than three points higher than state and national averages. Investigations revealed that a nearby wellfield, designated as a Superfund site, was tainted with TCE and PCE—both toxic chemicals seeping into private wells and even elementary schools. TCE is a known human carcinogen, yet it lingers in hundreds of sites across the country, difficult to remove and devastating to those exposed. Rhinehart’s grief became fuel for advocacy, and she joined other families determined to link environmental contamination with the rise in pediatric cancers.

Other mothers added their voices to the chorus. In Alabama, Lesley Pacey watched her four-year-old daughter Sarah battle leukemia while other children in their small town faced the same diagnosis. Her search for answers led her to form a nonprofit, produce the documentary The Cells of Baldwin County, and co-publish research in The Lancet Oncology. She turned her focus to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the widespread use of Corexit, a dispersant sprayed in massive quantities during the cleanup. Now working with chemically exposed victims, she continues to educate and press for accountability, unrelenting in her mission to protect coastal families from invisible toxins.

Then there was Susan Wind, whose daughter Taylor was one of 110 young people diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Mooresville, North Carolina. Wind still recalls the image she cannot shake: children in her neighborhood bearing long scars across their throats from surgeries to remove tumors. Trained as a criminal justice analyst, she turned her investigative skills toward her own community, raising more than $100,000 for a Duke University study and uncovering a disturbing truth. Coal ash from a local power plant—over 40,000 tons of it—had been used as fill material near Taylor’s high school. Despite evidence linking coal ash to increased cancer risks, her concerns were dismissed by local and state officials. “With the EPA on the sidelines,” Wind said, “well-connected companies with lots of cash have the final say regarding what is safe in your backyard.” Refusing to stay silent, she built alliances with parents nationwide who had uncovered similar negligence.

As the stories poured out, a pattern came into focus—Ecuador, Indiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune. Different places, different toxins, the same betrayal. Parents spoke not only for their own children but for those yet to be diagnosed, for the communities where invisible chemicals still seeped into water and soil.

In Washington, they found strength in numbers. What had once been private grief became public testimony, stitched together by the conviction that their children’s suffering was neither random nor unavoidable. They came to say that cancer clusters are not mysteries but warnings, and that until the government takes prevention as seriously as treatment, more children will be lost.

By the time the sun dipped behind the skyline, the plaza had become something more than a protest. It was a declaration of love for children gone too soon, of anger at a system that looks away, and of resolve to force accountability from those who would prefer silence. For the parents gathered there, the fight was no longer theirs alone. It had become a shared battle for the future.

Thousands of flowers are placed in front of seven-foot-high gold letters that read, 'EPA, do your job," at the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) headquarters in Washington DC as a memorial for all the children in America who have lost their lives to cancer. Images by John Nelson