WASHINGTON – September 26, 2011 – Tomorrow, 600 cancer patients, survivors, caregivers and their families from all 50 states and nearly every congressional district will unite to ask their members of Congress to support funding for cancer research and prevention programs. The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) is hosting its annual leadership summit and lobby day to urge lawmakers to commit to fund proven cancer control programs and research to help develop better early detection tools and treatments, particularly for those cancers that remain most lethal.
“Federal funding for cancer research, prevention, and control programs is one of our most important weapons in the fight against cancer,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, chief executive officer of ACS CAN. “It is critical that Congress commit to funding research that makes existing screening tests and treatments more effective and leads to breakthroughs on cancers for which we don’t have answers.”
Before meeting with their legislators, cancer advocates will attend training sessions on communicating with elected officials, conducting grassroots activities in their communities and engaging the media. They will be urging lawmakers to ensure that the fight against cancer remains a top national priority by protecting funding for research at the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, and funding for cancer prevention and early detection programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Progress against cancer will be jeopardized without sustained funding for the National Cancer Institute, which is by far the largest supporter of cancer research in the United States,” said Christopher W. Hansen, president of ACS CAN. “We are calling on lawmakers to make a commitment to defeat cancer – a disease that still kills more than 570,000 people in America every year.”
ACS CAN advocates will also be joined by a group of Division I college basketball coaches at a Capitol Hill rally on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 10:00 a.m. at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. The coaches, who are members of Coaches vs. Cancer®, a nationwide collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches, are putting aside their on-court rivalries and teaming up to ask Congress to make funding cancer research and programs a national priority.
“We need Congress to put aside partisan differences and work together to defeat a disease that continues to kill 1,500 people a day,” said Gary Reedy, volunteer chairman of ACS CAN’s Board of Directors.
ACS CAN is the non-profit, non-partisan advocacy affiliate organization of the American Cancer Society, which is dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage lawmakers, candidates and government officials to support laws and policies that will make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Christina Saull or Steven Weiss
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Phone: 202-585-3250 or 202-661-5711
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]