It's Official! Lung Cancer Alliance Hails Landmark Victory! President Obama Signs High Mortality Cancer Bill Into Law

Lung Cancer and Pancreatic Cancers Now Research Priorities

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Just hours before the end of the 112th Congress, constitutional deadline for approval of a bill passed by that Congress, President Barack Obama today signed into law the first legislation requiring comprehensive plans of research action for high mortality cancers, with lung and pancreatic cancers given priority status for expedited attention.

This landmark legislation, included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, requires the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop scientific frameworks for addressing cancers with survival rates of less than 50%, with first priority attention to lung and pancreatic cancers. The framework must be sent to Congress within 18 months.

"Thank you Mr. President and thank you Congress for giving all of us in the lung cancer community and all those at risk for lung cancer the best possible present for the start of a new year," said LCA President and CEO Laurie Fenton-Ambrose, whose national organization launched the legislative effort on lung cancer six years ago.

"This is a new era for lung cancer," she said. "We are now out of the shadows."

"Our mission is to cut lung cancer mortality in half by the end of the decade," Fenton-Ambrose continued, and we have added another tool in our arsenal to help make this goal a reality. This legislation, coupled with the validation of CT screening as a bigger potential life saver than any other cancer screening method, and with the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense starting to screen high risk veterans and military, this goal is absolutely possible."

Fenton-Ambrose thanked the entire lung cancer advocacy community for their untiring efforts and unwavering support over the past 6 years to see the legislation passed.  She also thanked the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCan) for joining forces to see the bill through to law.  Lung cancer's five year survival rate is 15%, and pancreatic cancer's is 5% - both little changed since the so-called War on Cancer legislation was passed forty years ago.

Lung Cancer Alliance's legislative saga started in 2006 during the 109th Congress with the passage of a Senate resolution calling lung cancer an urgent public health priority. The original sponsors were then Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chuck Hagel and Mike DeWine.

In the 110th Congress, bipartisan resolutions were passed unanimously by both Houses and in the 111th Congress bipartisan, bicameral legislation was introduced to authorize a comprehensive plan of action. The primary sponsors included Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), then Senator and now Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Senator John Kerry (D-MA), and House of Representatives members Donna Christensen (D-VI), Lois Capps (D-CA), Ed Whitfield  (R-KY) and Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ).

"We are deeply grateful to all these current and former members of the House and Senate for their leadership and unfailing support," said Fenton-Ambrose.

Fenton-Ambrose also thanked Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), primary sponsors of the pancreatic cancer bill, and PanCan CEO Julie Fleshman and Director of Government Affairs Megan Gordon Don for the team effort that finally made the bill a law. 

The final product, the Recalcitrant Cancer Act, represents a compromise worked out between the Congress and the administration on the Pancreatic Cancer Research & Education Act and Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act. 

Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA), www.lungcanceralliance.org, is committed to ending injustice and saving lives through an alliance of advocacy, education, and support. LCA provides live, professional support, referral and information services for patients, their loved ones and those at risk for lung cancer; advocates for multiple millions in public health dollars for lung cancer research; and conducts national awareness campaigns.

Follow Lung Cancer Alliance on Facebook: www.facebook.com/lungcanceralliance. Follow us on Twitter: @LCAorg.

Media Contact:
Kay Cofrancesco
[email protected]
302-521-5716

SOURCE Lung Cancer Alliance