Statement by ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, in Support of the Rally for Medical Research, April 8, 2013
A strong, stable federal investment in cancer research, prevention, and treatment is critical to continue the progress we are making for the more than 1.66 million Americans newly diagnosed with cancer every year. ASCO calls on Congress to renew its commitment to this life-sustaining research.
As a direct result of the federal investment in cancer research, we understand more about cancers than at any point in human history. This understanding of cancer at the molecular level has created unprecedented opportunities to slow the growth of cancer diseases. As a country, we can be proud that two of three people in the United States with cancer live at least 5 years after their diagnosis. This is up from one of two in the 1970s before the passage of the National Cancer Act. Since the 1990s, the nation's cancer death rate has dropped 18 percent, reversing decades of increases. More than 13 million people in the United States are cancer survivors. People with cancer are increasingly able to live active, fulfilling lives because of more targeted anticancer therapies, better symptom management and treatments with fewer adverse effects.
NIH and NCI Funding
In order to continue this progress, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) must have sustained and predictable increases in funding. While private industry is a strong partner in cancer research, public funding is essential to pursue the types of research in which industry may have no interest. This is particularly true for rare diseases, combinations of different companies' products, therapies with multiple treatment modalities (such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy), and direct comparisons of company products. NIH and NCI are critical components to funding research that directly changes the care we give to our patients.
The 5% cut to the budget of the NIH under sequestration will have a devastating and long-lasting impact on advances in biomedical research and the next generation of investigators in the United States. When accounting for biomedical research inflation, these automatic budget cuts will have effectively reduced the NIH budget by 23% ($6 billion) since fiscal year 2003—decreasing spending below fiscal year 2001 levels.
ASCO calls on Congress to ensure that NIH receives an increase that at least keeps pace with biomedical research inflation in fiscal year 2014. We join the community in respectfully requesting a minimum of $30.9 billion for NIH including $5.081 billion for NCI for fiscal year 2014. Meaningful progress cannot be made if NIH funding does not keep pace with the annual increase in the cost of conducting biomedical research.
Food and Drug Administration
In addition, a strong Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is vital to ensuring access to high-quality cancer care and life-saving treatments. ASCO is concerned that sequestration will cause slower approval of new and potentially life-saving drugs, difficulty in meeting challenges in monitoring of food and drug safety, and an inability to keep up with advancing science and technology. The FDA is doing an outstanding job of granting timely approval of safe and effective cancer treatments that are giving patients targeted therapies that offer greater benefit, but their ability to continue this progress is jeopardized by cuts to funding. Cancer patients rely on FDA to grant timely approval of innovative, new medicines, while maintaining high standards for safety and effectiveness.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
