I believe Congress has been presented with a critical opportunity to make an impact in the fight against cancer. You might remember that to end the government shutdown back in October, Congress agreed to form a bipartisan budget committee to come up with a long-term plan for addressing the deficit. The party caucuses chose Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) to lead that committee, and they succeeded in coming to an agreement last week. The budget agreement would restore more than $22 billion that was cut through the across-the-board reductions known as the budget sequester. This agreement is an important first step toward seeing Congress return to a constructive process of setting budget priorities. House and Senate appropriators will now decide how to spend that money on individual programs. With more than 580,000 Americans are expected to die from cancer this year 1,500 each day prioritizing cancer research and prevention programs by restoring funding to the NIH, NCI and CDC should be a no-brainer. ACS CAN calls on Congress to restore the funding for cancer research and prevention that was lost through sequestration. To understand the importance of restoring research funding, it is important to remember the harm caused by the sequester this past year and the continued impact this will have if this budget process doesn't get back on track. The sequester cut more than $1.5 billion from the NIH budget, including $250 million from the NCI budget, compromising past progress in biomedical research and jeopardizing future discovery, forcing researchers to limit the scope of their projects, close their labs and in some cases leave the field altogether. I had the chance recently to speak with some of the directors of the nation's leading cancer centers about what specific consequences they are seeing as a result of the sequester. Here's what they told me:
The budget proposal sets the total spending levels for the next two years, which will give researchers some measure of predictability that is critical to their ability to plan their projects. The funding will also help to reinvigorate economic activity across the country, as 80 percent of NIH funding goes to research institutions in every state. More than anything, I want to see fewer people dying from cancer.ξ Accomplishing this requires a sustained commitment to make funding for cancer research and prevention a top priority in the budget, not just now in FY 2014, but as we look ahead to next year and the year after that. You can see the opportunity Congress has in front of them. ACS CAN is calling on Congress to prioritize a disease that will impact 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women by restoring funding for cancer research and prevention so as to reverse the sequester's effects on our nation's leading cancer centers and maximize our progress in the fight to defeat this disease.
Mariah Forster Olson, an ACS CAN Ambassador Constituent Team Lead (ACT Lead), traveled to Washington, D.C. this week to share her story as a childhood cancer survivor and to advocate on behalf of other patients and survivors during the 2019 Childhood Cancer Action Days.