14-year-old childhood cancer campaigner Erin Griffin dies in Adelaide
Posted: September 1, 2014 at 5:40 am
ABC Erin Griffin was an advocate for childhood cancer awareness.
A 14-year-old girl who campaigned to raise awareness about childhood cancer has died after making history through her participation in a gene therapy trial.
Erin Griffin died at the Children's Hospital in Adelaide with her parents, brother and grandmother by her side.
In 2013, Erin received a Children's Week Award for her advocacy work in raising childhood cancer awareness.
Erin was born in Scotland and moved to Australia when she was six.
She was diagnosed with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG), an incurable brain cancer, on February 18, 2012.
"We're all very sad to lose this special girl," Erin's specialist oncologist Dr Geoff McCowage told the ABC.
Dr McCowage, who runs a gene therapy trial at the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, said Erin made history.
"She was only the second child in the world to take part [in the trial]," he said.
"Throughout her ordeal she stayed courageous, she took two trips to the United States, one to Scotland and she was active on the internet telling the story of what she was going through and offering support to others going through the same thing.
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14-year-old childhood cancer campaigner Erin Griffin dies in Adelaide