Stand Up To Cancer

Last week, President Obama set the federal budget process into motion with his official Budget Request to Congress for the Fiscal Year 2011. While there's plenty of negotiating yet to be done, we know that the President's plan includes a $1 billion increase to the National Institutes of Health budget, raising the overall NIH budget to a total of $32.1 billion. While a 3.2% increase in budget may seem modest, it is the largest single year increase proposed by the executive branch in 8 years, coming at a moment when the President and members of Congress have pledged to cut spending.

The National Cancer Institute will receive $161 million of the new NIH funds, raising the NCI's budget to $5.26 billion. More broadly, the budget request highlights "more than $6 billion for cancer research," with funds being directed "to initiate 30 new drug trials in 2011, and double the number of novel compounds in Phase 1 - 3 clinical trials by 2016; and support the completion of a comprehensive catalog of cancer mutations for the 20 most common malignancies, setting the stage for complete genomic characterization of every cancer as part of medical care within 10 years."

We're grateful to see that the White House is renewing support for the war on cancer. It's a war that will be in its 40th year by the time the next federal budget takes effect. By then, cancer will be the world's leading cause of death. The 111th Congress has the opportunity to make its mark on history by going beyond the President's call for more funds and sending a bill to his desk that mandates new and better weapons in the war on cancer, getting rapidly to the front lines.

The SU2C movement for change is robust. We can already see and say with certainty that the amount of money and material resources that are focused on cancer is not the end game. It's not how much is spent, but how it's spent. Your generous contributions are the starting gun for an innovative revolution to save lives now! To that end, the value of your donations is priceless.

A fact sheet about the HHS portion of the President's Budget can be found here, and the complete budget can be found here.

You can help lead the way here.