Congress has approved $20 million for a new lung cancer research program at the Department of Defense. The program, entitled the Peer Reviewed Lung Cancer Research Program, will be administered and funded by the DOD.
The president is expected to sign the bill containing the new lung cancer research program and the funding will be available in fiscal year 2009, which begins October 1.
"This is our top priority, this is the turning point. It is a breakthrough that lung cancer patients, their families and caregivers have been waiting for," said Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, president & CEO of the Lung Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit patient advocacy group. "By setting up this new program, Congress is finally acknowledging that the situation is urgent and that more research must be focused on lung cancer which is causing more deaths each year than breast, prostate and colon cancers combined."
Fenton-Ambrose noted that over 215,000 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States in 2008 and the majority will die in less than a year.
Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, a member of the LCA Board of Directors and a lung cancer survivor, said that DOD's vast experience with cutting edge technology would accelerate improvements in the detection, diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.
Congress started funding cancer research programs through DOD in the mid-nineties with a $25 million appropriation for breast cancer. Over the years a number of research programs have been added for other cancers, but not until now has a lung cancer program been included.
The legislation specifically notes that lung cancer is the most lethal of all cancers, taking more lives each year than all other major cancers combined, and that military personnel have heightened exposure to lung cancer carcinogens.
The bill requires the Army to provide a plan for how the $20 million will be spent and submit that plan to Congress within 120 days after the President signs the bill.