Sustained Funding for Cancer Research a Top Priority for Cancer Community
WASHINGTON – January 25, 2011 – Cancer patients, survivors and their loved ones are calling on the president to commit to making sustained funding for cancer research a top national priority. Cancer advocates will gather across the country tonight to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address, sending a message to the White House and Congress that funding medical research in a way that will help eliminate death and suffering from cancer must be high on the national agenda.
The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, is organizing a live online watch party for volunteer advocates across the country. The State of the Union comes as ACS CAN launched a new advertising campaign this week that urges Congress to increase funding for cancer research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), so that past federal investments do not go to waste.
“We’ve made tremendous progress thanks to past federal investments, but pulling back now would hurt our chances to capitalize on previous advances in our fight to defeat cancer,” said John R. Seffrin, Ph.D., chief executive officer of ACS CAN. “Funding cancer research and prevention programs in fits and starts will not help us to reach our potential to turn past advances into future breakthroughs.”
An estimated 1.5 million people in America will be told they have cancer this year, and 569,000 people will die from the disease. The federal government continues to be the largest financial supporter of cancer research, and research funded by the NIH and the National Cancer Institute has played a major role in every major advancement in the fight against cancer over the last 70 years.
“Medical breakthroughs in the fight against cancer can’t help cancer patients if promising research isn’t completed,” said Christopher W. Hansen, president of ACS CAN. “The president and Congress have the power to ensure that these critical research projects have enough funding to meet their lifesaving potential.”
To learn more about ACS CAN’s efforts to increase federal funding for cancer research and critical cancer control programs, please visit: www.fightcancer.org/research. To join the virtual State of the Union watch party, visit www.fightcancer.org on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 9 p.m. EST.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For More Information, Contact:
Alissa Havens or Steven Weiss
Phone: 202-661-5772 or 202-661-5711
E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]
