Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

New Campaign Aims to Jump-start Grassroots Support for Increased NIH Funding

2015; Wolters Kluwer; Volume: 37; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1097/01.cot.0000464344.41937.bd

1548-4688

Peggy Eastman,

Science, Research, and Medicine

FigureThe American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) and Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) have started a campaign to persuade legislators to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health by $6 billion over two years, including $1 billion for cancer research at the National Cancer Institute. The two organizations sponsored a “lobby day” on Capitol Hill last month to officially launch the campaign, named “One Degree” in recognition of the fact that everyone is separated by just one degree from someone with cancer. “We're all just one degree from someone with cancer, whether it be a relative, a friend, or a co-worker, if not ourselves,” said Lisa Paulsen, a co-founder of SU2C, a nonprofit program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation whose scientific partner is the American Association for Cancer Research. A website for the campaign (OneDegreeProject.org) invites viewers to share their own specific “one degree” by entering the name of a loved one into an electronic petition that will be sent to Congress and to share the information on Twitter with the hashtag #OneDegree. The petition says: “Enough already. It's time to end cancer.” And “We all know someone who has fought this disease, possibly even ourselves.” 23% Drop Since 2003 The site notes that federal cancer research funding—the bedrock of new life-saving treatments—has dropped by 25 percent since 2003. “Federal funding for medical research has declined more than 24 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2003, forcing cancer centers to halt promising clinical trials and drying up the grant pool relied upon by researchers,” ACS CAN President Chris Hansen, noted in a news release. “One Degree brings the voices of millions of people to lawmakers with the message that Congress should boost the federal investment in cancer research so we can save more lives from the disease.” ACS CAN is the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society. Financial support for the campaign is supported by Merck. “The future of patient care is dependent on federal investments in medical research, which make it possible for both the public and private sectors to bring forward groundbreaking approaches to help prevent, detect, and treat cancer and other life-threatening diseases,” said Julie Gerberding, MD, the company's Executive Vice President for Population Health and former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Merck is pleased to join this invaluable effort, which must succeed if America is to remain the global leader in medical research.” The One Degree site also includes videos with actors Bill Hader and Rob Riggle, made possible by ACT for NIH: Advancing Cures Today, a non-partisan effort committed to restoring funding to NIH.Figure“Our goal is simple: we seek the immediate restoration of funding for NIH followed by steady, predictable budget support in the future to enhance lifesaving research for patients around the world,” states the group's website. Its advisory committee includes David Baltimore, PhD, President Emeritus of California Institute of Technology; Ronald DePinho, MD, President of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; and Jennifer Doudna, PhD, Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley, among others. “Stagnent funding at NIH means stalled progress in the fight against costly and devastating diseases, lost economic output, and the forfeiting of America's global leadership in research and development,” said ACT for NIH's President, Pat White. “Campaigns like One Degree help educate America about the importance of NIH's role in medical research funding.” Harold Varmus, MD, who stepped down from his position as Director of the NCI after five years on March 31, has referred to the difficulties he experienced while trying to keep the cancer enterprise at NIH strong in a time of fiscal austerity. And in a message to NCI staff, grantees, and advisors when he announced his decision, Varmus wrote: “We have endured losses in real as well as adjusted dollars; survived the threats and reality of government shutdowns; and have not yet recovered all the funds that sequestration has taken away. This experience has been especially vivid to those of us who have lived in better times, when NIH was the beneficiary of strong budgetary growth.” He added, “As Mae West famously said, ‘I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better.’” In its most recent “Clinical Cancer Advances” report (OT 2/25/15 issue), the American Society of Clinical Oncology celebrated major progress in the fight against cancer, but issued a stern warning about funding cuts. ASCO President Peter Paul Yu, MD, Director of Cancer Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, noted: “Federal investment in research has stagnated over the past 10 years, resulting in a 23 percent loss in purchasing power for the National Institutes of Health. In practical terms, this means promising research is going unfunded, new studies are being scaled back, fewer patients have the opportunity to participate in clinical trials, and future meaningful advances against cancer may be few and far between—unless our nation renews its commitment to fighting cancer.” In a comment on that new report, ASCO Chief Medical Officer Richard L. Schilsky, MD, agreed: “The U.S. federal cancer research enterprise faces crucial funding challenges that threaten the pace of research progress,” he said. “Now is the time to increase our nation's investment in cancer research to ensure that we can build on these advances well into the future.” 21st Century Cure Legislation Draft The new Precision Medicine Initiative announced by President Obama in January in his State of the Union Address would allocate $70 million to the NCI to accelerate research on genomic drivers in cancer. In Congress, major supporters of cancer research include Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who have released a bipartisan 21st Century Cures legislative draft package for discussion; this draft document, which addresses serious and life-threatening diseases including cancer, focuses on encouraging young scientists; further incorporating the patient perspective into the regulatory process; modernizing clinical trials; providing incentives for developing new drugs and devices for unmet medical needs; and supporting health information technology by furthering the use of new technologies and data sharing.