JUNE 2009
The fairness of increasing cancer research funding in FY2010 comes into question during House and Senate hearings
Two leading appropriators in the House and Senate have expressed reservations about President Obama's plan to double the government's spending on cancer research.
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative David Obey (D-WI), who each chair appropriations subcommittees that set funding levels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in their respective chambers, recently questioned the fairness of the President's proposal to dedicate a significant proportion of the NIH budget to cancer research. During separate hearings on the FY2010 budget, each suggested that the emphasis on cancer research would come at the expense of other diseases.
Harkin posed the question of fairness to a panel of top NIH officials, including NIH Acting Director Raymond S. Kington, M.D., Ph.D., and NCI Director, John Niederhuber, M.D., during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (Labor HHS) Subcommittee on May 22. He emphasized his long-standing support for cancer research funding but explained that he must also answer to advocates of a host of other diseases.
More recently, during a June 2 hearing of the Appropriations Labor, Health, Education Subcommittee, Rep. Obey told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he was opposed to the idea of allocating extra money to cancer research in the NIH FY2010 budget, saying that he would not pit one disease against another.
Under President Obama's proposed FY2010 budget, the NIH would receive a 1.4 percent increase ($443 million) over the FY2009 level, bringing the overall total to about $31 billion. More than half of the increase, $268 million, would be directed at cancer research as part of the President's commitment to doubling the federal investment in cancer research.
"So when we're looking at such a small increase, just 1.5 percent, should we put so much of it into one disease?" asked Harkin.
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