As 2006 draws to a close, the fight for 2007 funding goes on….
Posted by Carlea Bauman on December 21st, 2006
Cancer funding at the Federal level has been flat in recent years. In other words, the actual dollar amount allocated to the National Cancer Institute (for cancer research) and Centers for Disease Control (for cancer control programs) hasn’t gone up or down in any significant way. However, when you factor in inflation, this actually means that cancer funding has been decreasing. As put by NCI Director Dr. Niederhuber in a recent meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board:
“…because of the higher inflation index for biomedical research, flat budgets represent an actual 3 to 5.5 percent decrease (about $150M) in the operating budgets….”
To avoid this inflationary cut, the Senate voted in favor of an amendment offered by Senators Specter (R-PA) and Harkin (D-IA) which would put back $7 billion into the appropriation for Labor-HHS-Education, above President Bush’s budget request. You may remember that it’s Labor-HHS-Education that funds the National Cancer Institute.
Unfortunately for us, the 109th Congress went home for holiday break without completing the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriation bill, as Dusty talked about last week. To keep the federal government running, Congress passed what is called a Continuing Resolution (CR) which keeps the funding for 2007 at levels that were passed for 2006. This CR expires in mid-February 2007. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but at least the government is still running…for now.
In mid-December we got word from the incoming Democratic leadership that they weren’t going to try to get the funding bills passed AT ALL for FY07. They were just going to extend the CR through until the end of FY07. And just deal with figuring out funding for FY08. This is not good news.
But there is one ray of hope. The Democrats who oversee the committee that decides funding for things like cancer research have stipulated that the Congress may adjust some departments funding levels and “earmarks” based on the demonstration of “urgent need.” C3 sympathizes with this dilemma, but we are quite certain that cancer research, screening and education programs are a most “urgent need.”
We have joined with our partners at One Voice Against Cancer and other health-related organizations to make sure Congress sees our point of view. We have to be prepared yet again for a tough fight to fund colorectal cancer research and programs when 2007 rolls around. Be sure to sign up as a One Minute Advocate because we might be calling on you to help us in this effort.
In the meantime, allow me to extend my heartfelt wishes to you and all those you love for a truly joyous holiday season.
