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Increased NIH Funding Needed to Combat Cancer in Minorities, Medically Underserved

May 1, 1999
Volume: 
13
Issue: 
5

The Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) is
urging a 100%, or at least a $300 million, increase in federal
funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to reverse the
cancer inequities documented in a recent Institute of Medicine (IOM)
report entitled, The Unequal Burden of Cancer: An Assessment of
NIH Research and Program for Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved.

The IOM report released in January 1999 prompted the US Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee, which sets the budget for the NIH, to
hold a hearing to investigate the organization’s commitment to
minority cancer research. At the hearing, subcommittee chairman Arlen
Specter (R-PA) asked the ICC and other expert witnesses to submit
comments and recommendations. The ICC is a national coalition focused
on addressing the disparities in the incidence and mortality of
ethnic minority and medically underserved communities.

“The IOM report confirmed what we’ve known all
along—that ethnic minorities and the medically underserved have
not shared equally in the nation’s progress against cancer.
Anything short of a 100% increase cannot begin to address the tragic
disparities in cancer incidence and mortality in these
communities,” said Lovell Jones, PhD, ICC co-chair and professor
and director of experimental gynecology and endocrinology at the
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

National Network

The ICC’s call for increased NIH funding to implement the IOM
report recommendations was deliberated at its recent conference held
in Washington, DC. The conference served as a forum for the ICC to
launch a national network of several hundred individuals—ranging
from cancer survivors to health professionals and scientists—who
are dedicated to securing the funding increases and other policy
changes necessary for ending the current disparities in cancer
research, prevention, early detection, and treatment among ethnic
minorities and the medically underserved.

“Clearly, the ICC must step up its efforts if we are truly to
end the war on cancer for all people. Through the ICC National
Network, we plan to push for positive policy developments and hold
policymakers at all levels of government accountable to all of their
constituencies,” said Susan Shinagawa, the newly elected
co-chair of the ICC and a cancer survivor.

“The sad truth is that if there was equitable application of
current knowledge about cancer prevention, control, and
treatment—as well as continued advances in research—we
would reduce cancer incidence by at least 25% and cancer mortality by
50% among ethnic minority and medically underserved populations in
the United States. The ICC National Network intends to make this a
reality,” said ICC member and representative of the NAACP, John
Arradondo,MD, MPH.

Short-Term Goals

Other major, short-term changes that the ICC National Network will be
advocating for include:

  • Immediate development of a 5-year strategic plan by the NIH, with
    specially targeted funding to implement the recommendations set forth
    in the IOM study;

  • Doubling the funding for the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End
    Results (SEER) program, specifically to expand data collection to
    include more regions with ethnic minorities and/or the medically
    underserved and to improve coordination with other cancer registries;

  • Doubling the funding for the Centers for Disease Control and
    Prevention (CDC) National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR);

  • Increasing the CDC cancer prevention budget, including $215 million
    for its Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program, as well as
    additional funding for its prostate, colorectal, and other screening
    efforts; and

  • Adding $10 million to the budget of the National Center for Health
    Statistics (NCHS) for line-item funding, with a specific directive to
    expand the national Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES)
    to include all ethnic minority and underserved populations.

Long-Term Policy Goal

The ICC’ s longer-term public policy goal is to enact a
comprehensive, multiagency program for national cancer prevention and
control for ethnic minorities. The ICC has been advancing the idea
that a highly visible national cancer coordinating entity be
established that would include all federal agencies, such as the CDC,
Health Resources and Services Administration, NIH Office of Minority
Health, Indian Health Services and other DHHS agencies, Department of
Defense, Environmental Protection Agency, and others.

“To be victorious against the hideous diseases of cancer, the
war must be fought and won across federal department and agency
lines” said Susan Shinagawa. “We plan to continue and
increase our dialogue and interactions with the appropriate
congressional authorizing committees that have jurisdiction over
health care financing, research, treatment, prevention, and
education, to end the current cancer disparities.”

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