Fighting Crisis in Cancer Funding Named Number One Priority for AACR

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) says that declining budgets at the National Institutes of Health a crisis standing in the way of bringing cancer research to patient’s lives.

For the past ten years, NIH budgets have been essentially flat.  Factoring in rising research costs, flat funding means a loss of nearly $6 billion dollars in purchasing power.

AACR is calling on its members and the advocacy community to work even harder with Congress to invest in medical research.  The AACR board of directors said,

Therefore, the AACR announced this morning that it plans to redouble its efforts to engage with Congress to make research funding a higher national priority, raise public awareness of the importance of continued investment in cancer research, and call on its 34,000 members and broader advocacy community constituencies to join together to help better explain and illustrate the value of cancer research and biomedical science to the economic health and well-being of this nation.

AACR President Judy E. Garber, MD, MPH said,

We already see the effects on our most precious resource, young investigators. This is potentially disastrous, as we are relying on them to ensure the continuing pipeline of new discoveries that will have ever greater impact on the welfare of patients and the public health.

AACR is holding its 2012 annual meeting in Chicago this week – Accelerating Science: Concept to Clinic.