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DOD lobby led to billions in research
By Euna Lhee
When Fran Visco welcomed 1,600 breast cancer researchers and their advocates to Baltimore this week, she was doing more than opening a symposium for scientists. She was celebrating one of the most successful medical lobbying efforts in the nation’s history.
The researchers and physicians are funded by the Department of Defense - an unlikely source for cutting-edge programs in breast cancer.
It was 17 years ago that Visco, a Philadelphia lawyer and breast cancer survivor, began lobbying for increased spending to fight breast cancer.
Her efforts paid off two years later, when Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, expanded a tiny Defense Department mammography project to $210 million.
Now known as the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, its grants have provided a total of $4.7 billion to scientists who study not only breast cancer but also autism, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, neurofibromatosis and other diseases far removed from the battlefield.
Officials acknowledge that the beneficiaries of the research extend beyond the military to the general public. And they said no one suffers as a result.
Read the full story in the Baltimore Sun.
“The money is added to the president’s budget after all the soldiers’ needs are met.
“It’s not the same dollar amount year after year,” said Dr. Melissa Kaime, deputy director of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. “This program does not take away from the defense budget.”
Promoters of breast cancer research also seem happy with Defense management, which has supported the involvement of patient advocates in the selection of research projects from the outset.
About $2 billion in Defense funds has gone into breast cancer research since 1993, including $138 million this year. But Visco, 60, said it’s not about the size of the budget.
“We don’t want to throw money at the scientists,” she said. “We need money that will be spent well.”
The funds pay for large gatherings of researchers like this one every few years.
The fifth “Era of Hope” conference has brought together scientists, physicians, breast cancer survivors and policymakers. The events conclude this afternoon with a session on: “How will we eradicate breast cancer?”
During the opening ceremony Wednesday, Visco challenged the researchers by asking, “What have you been doing for the past 10 years?”
According to Dr. Sara Sukumar, an oncologist at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, the answer is “a hell of a lot.”
“It’s difficult to come up with one solution to treat the multiple subtypes of breast cancer,” she said. “But we’ve showed that breast cancer is a very treatable disease.”
Euna Lhee writes for the Baltimore Sun. Read the full story at BaltimoreSun.com.
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