Mr. Speaker, June is Leukemia Awareness Month. An estimated 3,300 Canadians will be diagnosed with leukemia this year and an estimated 2,100 Canadians will die of leukemia in 1999.
Unfortunately relatively little is known regarding the causes of leukemia. Health Canada is currently studying the causes of leukemia as part of the department's ongoing enhanced cancer surveillance system.
Leukemia accounts for almost one-third of all new cases of cancer in Canadian children and teenagers and is the most common cause of death. Cancer is the second leading cause of death after injuries in Canadian children and adolescents aged one to nineteen.
Health Canada's childhood cancer surveillance and control program will contribute substantially to improved childhood cancer control in Canada through an ongoing surveillance of treatments, outcomes and studies of cancer patients and healthy controls.
The initiative to have June declared Leukemia Awareness Month comes from the Leukemia Research Fund of Canada.