This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
AACR asks Congress to support cancer research funding
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
In response to a Senate hearing on “The Fight Against Cancer: Challenges, Progress and Promise” the American Association for Cancer Research issued a release calling for support from Congress for cancer research, particularly focused on the country’s aging population.
“On behalf of the more than 34,000 members of the AACR, we wish to thank Senators Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) for convening this important cancer research hearing to discuss the relationship of aging to cancer,” Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), chief executive officer of the AACR, said in a press release. “However, in order to continue the progress that has been made and to speed the eradication of this disease that affects so many around the world, Congress must step up and provide a major increase in funding for cancer research now,” Foti said.
Carlos L. Arteaga
Harold Varmus, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, and Thomas A. Sellers, PhD, MPH, executive vice president and director of the Moffitt Research Institute at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and a former member of the AACR board of directors, testified as panelists along with other distinguished scientists, advocates and cancer survivors at a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing.
“Because cancer is more likely to occur in older people, the aging of the baby boom generation is expected to create a bulge in cancer cases,” Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, AACR president, professor of medicine and cancer biology, and associate director for clinical research at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said in the release.
“With the aging of our population, demographic experts predict there will be a dramatic increase in the number of cancer diagnoses and mortalities,” he said. “Continued research and development of new therapies and the funding necessary to do so are imperative, not only to continue to treat and even cure cancer in all patients, but also to meet the increased national need for improved care of older patients with this disease.
“Cancer already costs the country more than $215 billion per year in direct and indirect costs, and this burden will increase as the number of cases grows,” Arteaga said.