Budget Plan Risks Hard-Fought Research Gains

President Trump’s budget proposal for FY 2018 calls for a drastic 20% cut to the National Institutes of Health.  The NIH funds the vast majority of cancer research in our nation.  Cuts of this size will wipe out the increases set in motion through the recently passed 21st Century Cures Act – and push back Esophageal Cancer research by many years.  You can make your voice heard by clicking on the link below.

ECAN and Coalition Partners Oppose the Cuts

ECAN is a founding member of the Deadliest Cancers Coalition and has signed on to a letter to Congress requesting that Congress reject the nearly $6 billion in cuts to the NIH budget and instead,

continue the vigilance on providing stable funding increases for the NIH and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) so that we can continue the basic and translational research that is critical to making advances on the nation’s deadliest cancers. Specifically, we call on the 115th Congress to support the nation’s deadliest cancers by:
  • Putting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on a path of sustained growth by passing a final FY2017 appropriations bill that includes the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $34.1 billion for the NIH.
  • Continuing to support critical research on the nation’s deadliest cancers by passing an FY 2018 appropriations bill that increases the NIH budget by at least $2 billion and provides $300 million in additional funding for the Cancer Moonshot as designated in the 21st Century Cures Act. It is critical that the funding for the Cancer Moonshot supplement, not supplant, appropriated funding for the NIH and/or the NCI.
  • Joining the Congressional Caucus on the Deadliest Cancers and by ensuring that there are no lapses in health coverage for this critical population. (Deadliest Cancers are defined as cancers with less than a 50% survival rate.)

ECAN signed on to a similar letter as a member of the One Voice Against Cancer Coalition.

Cutting research funding would hamper the important progress that we’re making now. Because Esophageal Cancer is one of our nation’s deadliest cancers, we cannot afford to wait. Lives hang in the balance. Historically, patients diagnosed with Esophageal Cancer have had very few treatment options, but we now have reason to believe the future can hold more promise. Hope is on the horizon because of breakthroughs researchers are achieving now and expect to reach in years to come largely thanks to the important stand that Congress took in passing the 21st Century Cures Act, including the Cancer Moonshot.

Let’s not allow all of the progress we have worked so hard to achieve be hampered, delayed or stopped altogether.

Here’s Your Chance to Take a Stand

 

 

For Years, Cancer Research has experienced bipartisan support in the United States
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