How to Beef Up Cancer Funding in Two Steps
Who do you think the largest funder of cancer research in the world is?
It's not Susan G. Komen or Lance Armstrong, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation or the American Cancer Society.
It's actually you and me.
Our taxpayer dollars fund the National Cancer Institute, the federal government's lead for cancer research; nobody else pumps the kind of money they do into cancer research.
When my Mum was getting chemo, the therapies dripping into her body were likely developed with some April 15 dollars. Ditto the clinical trials she participated in, the new treatments she tried.
And these taxpayer investments are moving the needle. In 1992, about 7 million folks survived cancer; over the next 25 years, it rose to 18 million. By 2040, it's projected to be 26 million. That's a whole lotta life returned to people.
NCI's fingerprints aren't the only ones moving these numbers northward, but they are significant ones. There's still a ways to go until everyone diagnosed emerges triumphant, but the arrows point in the right direction.
If you're raring to beef up NCI's funding so they can get more treatments online, here are some useful mechanics to understand.
NCI is funded by Congress through a process called appropriations, known in the biz as approps. There is a House Approps Committee and a Senate Approps Committee.
The current House approps bill would fund NCI at $7.8 billion. The Senate bill would fund it at $7.4 billion. These are big numbers. But some 40.5% of Americans are diagnosed with cancer during their lives, both Democrat and Republican. I'm guessing your life has been touched by cancer. Mine certainly has. And I hold us both in that.
Neither approps bill has become law. House and Senate appropriators need to agree on the final funding number and that's no walk in the park. So how can we get the biggest chunk of change for cancer funding?
Two-to-Three Steps
- Call your most senior Senator (why seniority matters here) and ask for the name of the staffer who handles National Cancer Institute appropriations - if the person you're talking to isn't sure (it's a pretty specific question), you can ask for the name of the health legislative assistant. No need to speak with the staffer, we're just after their name so we can email them. Email format is firstname_lastname@senatorslastname.senate.gov
- Drop that staffer a friendly note asking for robust NCI funding in the fiscal year 2025 budget (sounds pretty official, doesn't it?). You could even say, "Fund the National Cancer Institute at the House level of $7.8 billion" (since that's the higher number between the House and Senate bills). Here are my favorite strategies for writing a winning email.
- If you want to hit a triple or homer, try this technique.
Cancer funding is the rare bipartisan bird. It devastates red and blue districts. President Biden lost his son to brain cancer (which led to accelerating the Cancer Moon Shot), President Trump's son-in-law had thyroid cancer while serving in the White House.
The House and Senate will have a lot to sort through to reconcile their two approps numbers, but it sure can't hurt if there are constituents making friendly requests for bipartisan cancer research. It might encourage Congress to go for the higher funding level. Which could help bring another game-changing treatment online, and give someone their life back.