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2006 Legislative Asks

1. The National Breast & Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program

  • This CDC program provides breast and cervical cancer screenings and treatment to low-income, uninsured women.
  • Early detection is one of the best ways to defeat cancer. Breast cancer diagnosed at a local stage has a 98% 5-year survival rate.
  • After it has spread, the 5-year survival rate decreases to 26%.
  • Between 1990 and 2001, U.S. breast cancer death rates dropped by almost 22%, thanks in part to increased screening.
  • Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with 212,920 cases of breast cancer and 40,000 deaths projected. Over 9,710 cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed, and 3,700 women will die from this disease.
  • Many of those who die will be uninsured women, who are 49 percent more likely to die than insured women during the four to seven years following an initial breast cancer diagnosis.
  • Current funding (about $203 million) only reaches 1 in 5 eligible women.
  • We are requesting that Congress increase funding in the next year to $250 million, and over time increase funding to a level that ensures screening for all eligible women.

2. Increase Research Funding

  • For 2006, Congress cut the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) budget for the first time in a decade. The President’s budget proposed an additional cut of $40 million for Fiscal Year 2007.
  • Experts at NCI estimate that maintaining current services would require an increase of $296 million, the amount that is required to sustain existing NCI programs and provide for some minimal growth. Over 80 percent of the NCI budget goes directly to researchers and medical facilities in local communities
  • In 1976, half of all cancer patients survived five years or more after being diagnosed. Today, closer to two-thirds of patients are living five years or more after a cancer diagnosis. And just recently the American Cancer Society announced the first ever recorded drop in the actual number of cancer deaths in the United States.
  • This is the time to accelerate our investments in the war against cancer, not retreat from our historical commitment.
  • Each year that we fail to keep pace makes it harder to get back on track. We are asking that Congress provide at least 5% annual increases for NCI to sustain our progress in life-saving research.

3. Congressional Cancer Promise

  • The Congressional Cancer Promise builds on the momentum of the Congressional 2015 Letter that was a focus of the 2005 Lobby Day.
  • In 2005, 92 Senators and 280 Members of Congress signed a letter to the President in support of the national challenge goal of eliminating suffering and death due to cancer by the year 2015. While this is not a goal that can be reached with certainty, the advances made by our sustained historical commitment to cancer research and programs enable us to talk about a time when people live with cancer rather than die from it.
  • The conquest of cancer is within our grasp if we adopt bold new policies and make the necessary investments. The opportunities to beat this disease demand our focused attention and there are steps we can take to jumpstart our progress toward the 2015 goal.
  • The Congressional Cancer Promise reflects steps that ACS CAN has identified as critical in the short term to putting the nation’s fight against cancer back on track.
  • The Congressional Cancer Promise commits a Member of Congress to specific legislative actions.
  • The Congressional Cancer Promise provides a campaign focus for our legislative agenda leading up to and through Celebration on the Hill 2006