I congratulate the Fight Colorectal Cancer volunteers who took action this year to protect colorectal cancer research and prevention funding. We should be proud of our achievements, but we cannot become complacent. We must prepare for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget battle that lies ahead. Please register to attend Fight Colorectal Cancer’s Call-on Congress next March – where advocates from around the country will be urging their legislators to continue to protect colorectal cancer research funding.

The following are the spending outcomes on Fight Colorectal Cancer’s three appropriations priorities:

• The Colorectal Cancer Control Program (CRCCP)
• The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and
• The Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP)

Note: The funding levels described below for the CRCCP and NCI do not reflect a 0.189 percent across-the-board cut that will be applied to all discretionary programs under the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), Education, with the exception of the Pell Grant Program.

Colorectal Cancer Control Program
Despite threats of deep spending cuts, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received a slight increase, which allowed funding for the CRCCP to be preserved at its current level of $43.07 million. The CRCCP currently funds colorectal cancer programs in 25 states and four tribal organizations. Funded sites can use up to one-third of funds to provide no-cost screening services to eligible low-income men and women age 50-64. The remaining two-thirds of funds are for colorectal cancer education and outreach strategies. Maintaining CRCCP funding allows education and screening programs currently underway to continue. If funding for CRCCP was increased, education and screening programs could be expanded to more states.

National Institutes of Health

For FY2012, the NIH will receive a $299 million increase in its budget, with the various Institutes and Centers receiving
proportional increases, resulting in $5.082 billion for the NCI. The outcome reflects compromise between the $1 billion increase for the NIH in the House Labor-HHS -Education spending bill and the $190 million cut in the Senate bill. In addition to $30.698 billion for the NIH, the bill also includes $10 million for the Cures Acceleration Network (CAN), which was established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The purpose of CAN is to accelerate the testing of high-need cures – drugs, biologics and devices – that are not attractive for development within the commercial market.

Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program
Another important victory for the colorectal cancer community was the inclusion of $12.8 million for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) PRCRP. Comparatively, the PRCRP received $16 million for FY2011. While the program’s budget was decreased, some in Congress have called for the elimination of non-defense spending, including funding for medical research, from the DoD spending bill. The PRCRP funds research on several forms of cancer, including colorectal cancer.

Fight Colorectal Cancer is watching the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing Examining the Increase in Drug Shortages.

The hearing began at 9:30 this morning, September 23, 2011, and will continue after a recess.

You can watch it with us on UStream Live.

Testimony already from Howard K. Koh, Assistant Secretary for Health, Department of Health and Human Services, who was accompanied by Dr. Sandra L. Kweder from the FDA.  Both answered questions from Subcommittee Members.

Representative Charlie Dent

Pennsylvania congressman Charlie Dent has introduced a bill that would direct the U.S. Postal Service to sell a semipostal stamp to raise money for federally funded colorectal cancer research and prevention programs. Semipostal stamps are regular postage stamps that are sold at a surcharge over their postage value. The additional charge is a voluntary contribution by the purchaser to a designated cause.

Under the “Fight Colorectal Cancer Stamp Act” (H.R. 893), funds raised from a semipostal colorectal cancer stamp would be used for colorectal cancer programs at the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.

Rep. Dent is working to identify a path for passage of the bill and Fight Colorectal Cancer is attempting to identify a champion for companion legislation in the Senate.  Passage of H.R. 893 will not be easy; therefore, Rep. Dent needs our help.

H.R. 893 was introduced in March 2011 and, to date, has only eight cosponsors. If Rep. Dent is to convince House leaders to advance H.R. 893, he must be able to show strong support for the bill among his House colleagues.

Please take a moment today to contact your representative and ask him or her to cosponsor H.R. 893.

Passage of H.R. 893 may be one of our best opportunities to maintain, and perhaps even increase, funding for colorectal cancer programs in the foreseeable future. However, without more cosponsors, the bill’s prospects are not good. You can help change that. 

Take a moment today to make your voice heard.

Join Fight Colorectal Cancer March 5 – 7, 2012 in Washington, DC

Registration is now open!

Delayed consideration of this bill, which funds the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), gives colorectal cancer advocates more time to contact their House and Senate lawmakers when they return home in August.

The message: Funding for colorectal cancer research and prevention must be a priority.

In August, consider participating in town hall meetings with lawmakers. Or, take the time to find out if your lawmakers will be at a county fair or local parade and stop by to say hello and share your story and our message.

Many representatives and senators post their town hall meeting schedules on their websites (like Rep. Chris Gibson of upstate New York, pictured at left). You can find your Members’ of Congress websites at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

We need to help lawmakers understand that even in these times of fiscal austerity, there are significant human and economic consequences to cutting medical research and prevention funding.

Even President Obama in his recent address to the nation said that while the government must live within its means, there are still things that we need to pay for in this country, including medical research.

Some lawmakers may tell you that the government can’t afford to increase, or even sustain, current funding for medical research. Lawmakers must be reminded they have a choice when it comes to funding priorities. Advocates need to ask lawmakers to protect colorectal cancer research and prevention funding. If we do not, no one else will.

Recently, Fight Colorectal Cancer held a free patient webinar on how to make a difference in the fight for cancer research funding. A recording of the webinar is available on our website. Take a few minutes to learn what you can do to take effective action.

The final bill includes more than $223 million for cancer research, including $12.8 million for the Department of Defense’s Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) that funds colorectal cancer research.

The PRCRP is an opportunity to advance the best research to eradicate diseases and support the warfighter for the benefit of the American public. The research target diseases like colorectal cancer that directly impact the welfare of the American military, their families and the public. For example, a study published in the June 2009 edition of Cancer Epiemology Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers found that colorectal cancer was one of the most common forms of cancer among active-duty military personnel. Screening rates in the military for colorectal cancer, like in the general population, are much too low. In 2008, only about 58% of those in the military who should be screened for colorectal cancer had been screened.

The mission of the PRCRP is to foster ground-breaking research, team science, and partnerships for the development of better prevention, early detection, and more effective treatment of cancer. The funding supports high-quality medical research, concentrating its resources on research mechanisms which complement rather than duplicate the research approaches of the other major funders of medical research in the United States. The PRCRP strives to recognize and fund innovative research, which can ‘leap frog’ scientific advances towards achieving the goals of the programs. This focus can be high risk, yet can yield high gains. CDMRP funds research that may be considered too risky or preliminary for the NIH/NCI to support.

The research potentially helps to decrease the more than $1 billion that the Department of Defense (DoD) spends on cancer care each year.

“Fight Colorectal Cancer, on behalf of the thousands of war fighters at risk for or living with colorectal cancer, thanks the US House of Representatives for reaffirming its commitment to funding cancer research through the CDMRP. While we are grateful that cancer research will continue through this program, we remain determined to do more and do better for the men and women living with cancer while wearing a uniform.” — Carlea Bauman, President, Fight Colorectal Cancer

Although colorectal cancer research has only been funded through the PRCRP since Fiscal Year 2010, we are already seeing innovative research taking place. Dr. Carlos Alvarez at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Dr. C. Couto at Ohio State University, and Dr. Kun Huang at Ohio State University recently received funding for a research proposal identifying genetic pathways that are affected in cancer risk and disease progression by studying military working dogs.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in America. As Congress moves forward with completing its work on the Fiscal Year 2012 appropriations bills we hope it will continue to fund proven research programs that have the potential to reduce the billions of tax-payer dollars we spend on cancer care.

The next step is for the Senate to consider the bill. Please take a minute to contact your Senators about the importance of Fiscal Year 2012 funding for colorectal cancer programs.

It Isn’t Earmarked Funding

The defense health programs don’t come close to meeting the Administration’s own definition of an earmark.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines earmarks as “funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Administration to control critical aspects of the funds allocation process.”

The fact that President Obama does not request funding for important health research programs does not make them “earmarks” if Congress chooses to fund them.

All funding through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) is competitively awarded. Research proposals go through a two-tier review process of scientific peer review, followed by a programmatic review that includes basic researchers, clinicians, consumers, and military members.

To qualify, CDMRP research must have relevance to service members and their families. The research potentially helps to decrease the more than $1 billion that the Department of Defense (DoD) spends on cancer care each year.

The Research Isn’t Duplicative

Back in 2007, COL Harris, testified before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee about the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. In answering how the CDMRP research is different than that of research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), COL Harris explained that “[t]wo hallmarks of CDMRP are innovation and inclusion of survivors in decision-making processes. CDMRP strives to recognize and fund innovative research, which can ‘leap frog’ scientific advances towards achieving the goals of the programs. This focus can be high risk, yet can yield high gains. CDMRP funds research that may be considered too risky or preliminary for the NIH/NCI to support.”

The CDMRP supports high-quality medical research, concentrating its resources on research mechanisms which complement rather than duplicate the research approaches of the major funders of medical research in the United States. Although the diseases included in this program are diverse, the research on these disease types is often synergistic. For example, investigators increasingly look at the molecular profiles of cancer, often finding connections across cancers affecting different body sites. Advances or progress related to one cancer fuels the research on the other cancers in this program, and treatments initially approved for one cancer are routinely found to be effective in others. For example, treatments approved initially for kidney cancer have proven effective in other solid tumors outside the scope of this program. Monoclonal antibodies, designed to target specific molecules on the surface of cancer cells, were first used in the treatment of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. They are now the most widely used form of cancer immunotherapy, with clinical trials in progress for almost every type of cancer.

It’s A Good Investment

Advocacy groups and members of Congress have been strong champions of Pentagon-conducted research because Defense Department researchers get results with minimal tax-payer investment.

Funding for the CDMRP is an opportunity to advance the best research to eradicate diseases and support the warfighter for the benefit of the American public. These research programs target diseases that impact directly the welfare of the American military, their families and the public. The CDMRP supports medical research on several forms of cancer (breast, blood, colorectal, melanoma, pediatric, brain, lung, ovarian, and prostate) and other diseases (like neurofibromatosis, bone marrow failure, and tuberous sclerosis complex) that have led to breakthroughs on nerve regeneration and traumatic brain injury. The CDMRP also funds research on Gulf War Illness, psychological health, spinal cord injury, and hearing and vision loss (which comprise a significant portion of current battlefield injuries). Other activities target diseases and conditions such as Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, Scleroderma, ALS, and Autism, conditions that can have a devastating effect on the families those in service leave behind.

Funding Successful and Innovative Research

Cancer research performed by the Pentagon is unique in that it funds high-risk, high-reward projects that may yield nothing or a spectacular breakthrough. Many of these projects have gathered enough data to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute, taking the research even further. The Pentagon’s annual budget for ovarian cancer research is only $12 million, but it has yielded multiple discoveries that benefit women with the disease. One example is the OVA1TM test, which helps physicians determine whether a pelvic mass is benign or malignant. Another breakthrough is a compound that slows ovarian cancer growth.

The DoD Prostate Cancer Research Program, through its sponsorship of Phase I/II trials through the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium, has helped to bring to market 3 new medicines for men with advanced prostate cancer that were approved by the FDA in 2010-11: namely, PROVENGE® (sipuleucel-T) – Dendreon Corporation, XGEVA™ (denosumab) – Amgen Inc, and ZYTIGA™ (abiraterone acetate) – Johnson & Johnson were all made possible through DoD support of a comprehensive clinical trials network of 13 US centers of excellence for prostate cancer research. Also, more than 2,700 patients have had access to 83 clinical trials since 2005 through the DoD’s Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium.

Research funded by the Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Program (TSCRP) has led to the development of animal models of tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) and clinical trials, resulting in the first drug specifically to treat TSC being approved by the FDA in 2010.  These same animal models are shedding light on the consequences and potential treatment for traumatic brain injury.

The ALS Research Program has led to the identification and development of new chemical compounds which are now being developed for potential treatments for ALS, a fatal disease for which there currently is no effective treatment. The program also has enabled the parallel development of many new approaches to therapies for ALS, increasing the chances of finding a meaningful treatment for all people with the disease, including our heroes serving in the military who are twice as likely to die from ALS as the general public.

Dr. Carlos Alvarez at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Dr. C. Couto at Ohio State University, and Dr. Kun Huang at Ohio State University recently received funding for an innovative research proposal identifying genetic pathways that are affected in cancer risk and disease progression by studying military working dogs.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in America. As Congress moves forward with the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills I hope it will continue to fund proven research programs that have the potential to reduce the billions of tax-payer dollars we spend on cancer care.

– Nancy Roach was a member of the FY10 PRCRP Integration Panel responsible for the programmatic review of grant applications submitted to the program for funding through the Department of Defense.  Ms. Roach is a founder of both Fight Colorectal Cancer (formerly the C3: Colorectal Cancer Coalition) and the Colon Cancer Alliance. She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors for Fight Colorectal Cancer. Ms. Roach also serves on the Executive Committee of the FDA-Duke Clinical Trial Transformation Initiative. In her role as a patient advocate, Ms. Roach also serves on a number of advisory boards for the National Cancer Institute.

Olympus and the Colorectal Cancer Coalition are joining forces to encourage at-risk Americans to commit to being screened for colon or rectal cancer. If you are age 50 or older, have family history of colorectal cancer or have other risk factors, you should commit to be screened at FinditFirst.com.

For each screening commitment, Olympus will donate $1 (up to $25,000 total) to the Coalition. In addition to making a commitment to be screened, visitors will also be invited to join Olympus and the Coalition in urging their Members of Congress to support legislation that ensures all Americans access to life-saving colorectal cancer screening.

Make the commitment at FinditFirst.com, get screened and tell your friends and loved ones!

View a side-by-side comparison of the House-passed and Senate-passed bills here.  View the President’s health reform proposal here.

The President will offer brief opening comments, followed by Republican and Democratic Members of Congress chosen by their colleagues.  They will then begin discussions around following four themes:

1. Controlling costs;
2. Insurance reforms;
3. Reducing the deficit; and
4. Expanding coverage.

The President will be seated in the middle of one side of the hollow square, with the Vice President, Secretary Sebelius, and congressional Leadership seated alongside him at the table.  Members of Congress will be seated by caucus around the square.

Members of Congress expected to attend the meeting include:

• Senator Harry Reid, D-NV, Majority Leader
• Senator Mitch McConnell, R-KY, Republican Leader
• Senator Dick Durbin, D-IL, Majority Whip
• Senator Jon Kyl, R-AZ, Republican Whip
• Senator Max Baucus, D-MT, Chairman of the Finance Committee
• Senator Chuck Grassley, R-IA, Ranking Member of the Finance Committee
• Senator Tom Harkin, D-IA, Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
• Senator Mike Enzi, R-WY, Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
• Senator Chris Dodd, D-CT, Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
• Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY
• Senator Patty Murray, D-WA
• Senator Kent Conrad, D-ND
• Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-WV
• Senator Ron Wyden, D-OR
• Senator Lamar Alexander, R-TN
• Senator John Barrasso, R-WY
• Senator Tom Coburn, R-OK
• Senator John McCain, R-AZ
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA
• Representative Steny Hoyer, D-MD, Majority Leader
• Representative John Boehner, R-OH, Republican Leader
• Representative James Clyburn, D-SC, Majority Whip
• Representative Eric Cantor, R-VA, Republican Whip
• Representative Charles Rangel, D-NY, Chairman of the Ways and Committee
• Representative Dave Camp, R-MI, Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee
• Representative Henry Waxman, D-CA, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee
• Representative Joe Barton, R-TX, Ranking Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee
• Representative George Miller, D-CA, Chairman of the Education and Labor Committee
• Representative John Kline, R-MN, Ranking Member of the Education and Labor Committee
• Representative John Dingell, D-MI, Chair Emeritus of the Energy and Commerce Committee
• Representative Xavier Becerra, D-CA
• Representative Louise Slaughter, D-NY
• Representative Robert Andrews, D-NJ
• Representative Jim Cooper, D-TN
• Representative Paul Ryan, R-WI
• Representative Marsha Blackburn, R-TN
• Representative Charles Boustany, R-LA
• Representative Peter Roskam, R-IL

** Note: Senator McConnell and Leader Boehner will designate one additional Republican member to attend.**

TweetCongress.org enables conversation between lawmakers and voters, in real time. Creators decided to build this site after searching for their local representatives on Twitter and were amazed at how many people on the Hill aren’t tweeting. They decided to build a grassroots effort to get the men and women in Congress to open up and have a real conversation with the voters.

It’s simple to join. Find your Representatives and begin to follow them. What if they aren’t tweeting? Sign their petition and get them started.

To learn more about twitter click here.

To follow C3 on Twitter click here.