President’s Budget Cuts Will Hurt

Over the last few days I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the President’s FY08 budget proposal and the cuts to cancer funding. So, I decided to step aside today to lend another voice to the fight - one that is directly impacted. Margo Michaels is the Executive Director of ENACCT (Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials), a national partner of the LAF. Take it home Margo.

In Tuesdays Wall Street Journal, I was reminded about how President Bush’s cuts in research funding will have dire effects for people with cancer.

Any improvement in cancer care is going to come from clinical trials. There have been enormous improvements in treating childhood cancer –and that’s simply because most kids with cancer–about 70 percent–participate in clinical trials. In contrast, only about 3 percent of adults with cancer participate in clinical trials –far fewer than the number needed to answer the most pressing cancer questions quickly. Why? We know that most people (and doctors) don’t know about clinical trials, believe common myths–like the myth that they would get a “sugar pill” instead of being treated for their cancer, or simply distrust the “system.” We have a lot of work to do to educate communities about what clinical trials are and why they are important.

But we’ve heard –for more than a decade–that there is inadequate funding to support innovative clinical trials education and outreach activities. Now, we read that draconian cuts “have begun to shut down trials and stop studying certain cancers,” potentially eliminating 3,000 spots for patients who would otherwise be willing to participate. Where does that leave us?

As a national partner of the LAF, we support community-based educational efforts to increase awareness about and enrollment in cancer clinical trials. Community organizations with which we work are now being told “don’t build up community interest; we can’t accommodate the increase in patients.” It’s unbelievable! We need to have more trials in community settings. And we need adequate funding to not only accrue more patients, but also to promote meaningful cancer clinical trials education in the community–not a fancy brochure or a magazine advertisement.

Margo Michaels

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