This just came from the ACS. Thanks to everyone who contacted their senators!
This week we have made tremendous progress in our fight to secure more funding for cancer research and programs. This victory is especially important after Congress cut cancer program and research funding for the first time in more than a decade last year.
Yesterday, the United States Senate voted 73 to 27 in favor of the Specter-Harkin amendment to the Senate budget resolution. This amendment included an additional $7 billion in funding for education and health programs, much of which will go to funding critical health and cancer-specific programs at the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Senate also approved a budget amendment sponsored by U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine) to provide an increase of $390 million for cancer research and prevention programs in the FY’07 budget.
Specifically, the Feinstein-Mikulski-Collins Cancer Research and Prevention Funding Amendment would provide:
– $244.6 million increase in the budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the National Cancer Institute and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities;
– $120.48 million increase in the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fund the following programs:
o The National Cancer Registries Program,
o The National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program,
o Colorectal Cancer Screening, Education and Outreach,
o Skin Cancer Prevention Programs,
o The Prostate Cancer Awareness Campaign,
o Ovarian Cancer Awareness,
o The Geraldine Ferraro Blood Cancer Program.
– $25 million increase in the budget for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for the Nurse Reinvestment Act/Nursing Programs.
These victories would not have been possible without the hard work of ACS CAN advocates throughout the country. Nationwide ACS CAN advocates generated nearly 10,000 emails and phone calls to senators in favor of the amendments. Your efforts made all of the difference. You are responsible for this incredible victory.
We should take time to celebrate our successes, but also know that this is still the beginning of the process and there is a long road ahead and much work yet to be done. The U.S. House still needs to act and final funding decisions will not be made until the appropriations process this fall.
While we know that there are no guarantees in our fight for more funding, we do know that there would have been no hope of increased funding this year without the passage of these critical amendments.
Thanks again for all of your great work! Your voice is being heard.