Letter: Congress needs to make cancer funding priority

From: Beth Hardesty

Columbus

Received: Sept. 19

Last week, my daughter and I traveled to Washington, D.C., to represent cancer patients and survivors from Columbus to call on Congress to make cancer a national priority. We joined more than 600 American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network volunteers from across the country to ask lawmakers in our nation’s capital to protect funding for cancer research and prevention programs.

We met with representatives of Sen. Richard Lugar, Sen. Dan Coats, Rep. Todd Young and Rep. Larry Bucshon and made it clear that Congress needs to put partisanship aside on behalf of the nearly 14 million cancer survivors in the United States and more than 1.6 million people in America who will be diagnosed this year.

Funding for research at the National Institutes of Health and for cancer prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and through the new Prevention and Public Health Fund must be top priorities in the federal budget. Legislation recently introduced in Congress to improve the quality of life for cancer patients must also be an important priority.

By making these lifesaving programs a priority, we will ensure that progress continues in the fight against cancer.

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