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Thousands Rally for More Cancer Funding

Posted on: Friday, 22 September 2006, 15:01 CDT

By ALAN J. MCCOMBS

A rally of 4,000 American Cancer Society volunteers descended on the National Mall Tuesday and Wednesday to convince U.S. House and Senate leaders to support funding for cancer research and screening programs.

The organization recruited between 8,000 and 10,000 supporters on the Mall near the U.S. Capitol. Called Celebration on the Hill, the event is the second time the ACS has organized a rally to appeal to the government for increased cancer-treatment funding. The 2006 event improved on the 2002 mobilization in size and scope.

Thousands of ACS volunteers from across the country visited Congress during the rally, seeking specific promises from legislatures for support of cancer research and prevention funding. Groups of volunteers met with their state's representatives and senators.

Bob Thoreaux, 55, a two-year cancer survivor, was among the thousands of supporters who joined the Cancer Society in their call for more funding.

In March 2004 Thoreaux, of North Smithfield, R.I., was feeling good. The vice president of finance at the New England Institute of Technology, he was active and in good shape.

When he turned 53, he started thinking about his health, and he scheduled a checkup with his local physician. Since Thoreaux was in his 50s, his doctor recommended a colonoscopy, just to be safe.

After the screening Thoreaux's doctor and a family friend came back with the result: cancer.

I thought we would just sit down and have a light chat and it would be nothing, Thoreaux said, (But) he came in and said (the cancer) was serious. Within three days I was in surgery.

The surgery was a complete success.

My doctor said I was the luckiest patient he had ever had, Thoreaux said.

Thoreaux's story represents both the advancement and challenges modern medicine will see against cancer in the 21st century. Advances in modern medicine have allowed far better identification and treatment of cancer, yet as 80 million baby boomers push into their late 50s and 60s, they are at increased risk for a host of diseases, such as cancer.

A century ago doctors could only identify obvious abnormal growths, and rudimentary surgeries to remove tumors had mixed results.

Now we're screening for cancers that are so small that you can barely see them or feel them, said William Nelson, professor of oncology at the John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. The chance of dying at any age of cancer is less today than five years ago.

These advances have not come without a cost. Last year Congress cut the funding of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, as well as the NIH's National Cancer Institute. The NCI's current budget is roughly $4.8 billion.

The 2006 cut represented the first year the NIH had a funding cut in 35 years, and it's the first one for NCI in nearly 10 years. The cuts came after years of significant budget increases. President Bush's proposed budget for 2007 would cut an additional $40 million from the NCI.

ACS called for a funding increase of $296 million, which is enough to keep pace with inflation while maintaining NCI's existing projects.

The Cancer Society is also supporting a reauthorization and expansion of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides breast and cervical-cancer screenings to at-risk low-income and uninsured women.

With a current budget of roughly $203 million, the program can only reach one in five eligible women.

The proposed cuts would also hinder the government's goal of eliminating suffering and death from cancer by 2015, which was laid out by NCI in 2002.

While this goal is described as admirable by some experts, others say its feasibility is questionable.

They intended that to be an audacious and bold statement to shake up the entire industry and field, like a call to go to the Moon, Nelson said. He doesn't believe the United States will eliminate all cancer deaths by 2015.

After the ACS celebration, the reaction from legislators was mixed. Some stated their support for cancer research and the ACS agenda, and others simply said they needed more time to study the issue. With the government facing a large budget deficit, several stated that this was a difficult time for funding of any issue.

We need to get the funding, but this is a place where funding is under attack, said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

Source: United Press International

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