The Pan Massachusetts Challenge (PMC)

Budget Outlook for Fiscal Year 2008

The past two years have seen budget cuts of the National Cancer Institute, and further cuts are proposed this year.

The NCI is the largest funding source of clinical trials and research, and most independent researchers that depend on these grants have been told to cut their budgets by about 30%. This has forced them to reduce the size of clinical trials and to eliminate others all together. This will slow the pace of improving available treatments.

Reaction from the medical and scientific community is consistent and overwhelmingly negative. Click any of the following links to read more about the effects of cuts in funding:

• Budget cuts may hurt children with cancer
• Cancer Trials Collide with Budget Cuts, Curb Research
• Scientists: Cuts Hurt Cancer Research on the CBS News website
• $78 million in cuts proposed for National Cancer Institute on the CBS News website
• Clinical trials cut due to budget cuts in the Wall Street Journal

I didn't select these articles, they were returned on a first page of a Google search, so if you find them a little biased, enter your own search and see what you find. The several I looked at said essentially the same things.

A Letter from Lance Armstrong about last year's proposed cuts.

"Congress is considering a budget that, for the first time in 40 years, slashes funding for cancer research programs, cancer survivorship programs and important cancer-related initiatives. As proposed, the 2007 budget cuts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget by $179 million and carves $40 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Far from arbitrary figures, these funding cuts translate directly into diminished research discovery, treatments and programs that help people with cancer live life on their own terms."

"While all of us understand the need for budget constraint and the difficult choices facing our elected officials, we also know that taking money from the fight against cancer is not a tough choice - it's simply the wrong one. Please tell your representatives loud and clear that the fight against cancer deserves more, not less. Please contact your representative now and/or forward this email to friends, family and others who you think will want to help stop our nation from turning back in the fight against cancer."