WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 20, 2017—The House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Committee marked up its FY 2018 spending bill today including a $1.1 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a $82 million funding boost for the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The bill preserves the individual programs and current funding levels for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cancer screening and early detection programs.
A statement from American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) President Chris Hansen follows:
“ACS CAN commends Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) and Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro’s (D-CT) commitment to increase cancer research funding through the NIH and to protect cancer prevention efforts through existing programs and level funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The potential to develop new and promising targeted cancer detection tests, treatments and therapies, is reliant on robust and sustained year-over-year federal funding increases. The $1 billion increase allocated for NIH in this bill, along with the continued funding of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, is an important step toward spurring continued scientific development and momentum against a disease that 1.7 million Americans will be diagnosed with this year.
“Research is only one part of a comprehensive approach to reducing cancer incidence and death. The importance of early detection is apparent in the committee’s decision to preserve level funding for cancer-specific early detection programs at the CDC rather than cutting or combining such programs into a broad chronic disease category as proposed by the administration.
“Yet the number one preventable cause of cancer in the country remains tobacco use, and the bill passed today cuts the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) by $50 million. If enacted the cut would likely end the CDC’s highly effective Tips From Former Smokers media campaign which has led 5 million smokers to attempt to quit smoking and 400,000 smokers to quit for good. OSH leads federal efforts to reduce tobacco-related death and disease by funding activities that help prevent youth from starting to use tobacco and help adult tobacco users to quit.
“We greatly appreciate the committee’s strong bipartisan commitment to increased cancer research funding and urge the Senate to build on this NIH increase as well as restore OSH funding.