New Board to Deal With Cancer Policy Issues

WASHINGTON--A new player has entered the cancer policy arena. At theinstigation of NCI director Richard D. Klausner, MD, the National ResearchCouncil has established the National Cancer Policy Board to aid the NCIin dealing with policy matters and strategic planning issues outside ofcancer research.

Peter Howley, MD, chief of pathology, Harvard Medical School, will chairthe 20-member panel. Joseph Simone, MD, executive director, Cancer CarePrograms, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, will serve as vicechair. The board's first meeting is tentatively scheduled for mid-February,staff director Robert M. Cook-Deegan, MD, told Oncology News International.

The National Cancer Act of 1971 directed the NCI director to reportto the President and Congress not only on cancer research, but on cancerissues outside of research. In 1994, an NCI committee urged that this functionand the NCI director's report take a more structured form. Dr. Klausner,who became NCI director in 1995, eventually initiated talks with the NationalResearch Council about forming a panel to do just that.

The board is intended to function as a neutral power among the sprawlingand sometimes brawling cancer constituency. Its members will include researchers,cancer survivors, and people familiar with the behavioral sciences, economics,clinical care, and drug development.