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REMARKS BY: TOMMY G, THOMPSON, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES PLACE: To the Cancer Research Foundation of America, Washington, D.C. DATE: December 3, 2001
In forming the Cancer Research Foundation of America, you brought the promise of hope and life to thousands upon thousands of hurting people. Everyone whose life has ever been touched by cancer, whether by having the disease or by watching a loved one suffer from it, is in your debt.
Thanks also to you, Tamra (Bentsen), for your leadership of the Congressional Families Action for Cancer Awareness group. You are drawing the attention of our country to this critical issue in a very thoughtful and helpful way, and I want to thank you for your wonderful work.
Let me also thank you, Father Coughlin . Representatives Pryce and Gonzalez . Cecile Tauzin . Miss America, Katie Harman . and let me congratulate this year's nominees: Melissa Thomas . Leslie Mouton . and Barbara Everett. All of you deserve our thanks and appreciation for the wonderful and sacrificial work you have done to help people suffering from cancer. We all appreciate each of you very, very much.
I wish I could say that cancer is a stranger to my family, but regrettably, we know it too well. My wife Sue Ann is a breast cancer survivor and in 1998, the Congressional Families organization recognized Sue Ann for her public work in fighting cancer and other diseases through her leadership of the Wisconsin Women's Health Foundation. So, the Congressional Families Action Awareness group is very high in my book.
While I'm so grateful that Sue Ann won her personal battle against breast cancer, I'll never forget being told for the first time that she had the disease. It's a message none of us ever want to hear.
Yet far too many Americans hear that message every year. Roughly 1.2 million Americans develop some form of cancer annually. One of every four deaths that occur in our country is cancer-related. That's 550,000 people each year.
It's for this reason that fighting cancer is an extraordinarily high priority for the president and for me. We appreciate being able to work with you and with organizations like the crfa so that, as partners, we can work in tandem toward our common goal - preventing and effectively eliminating cancer.
We want to partner with you because of your exceptional leadership. The cancer research foundation of america has now provided more than $50 million in funding to more than 200 promising scientists, and established investigators at more than 100 leading universities and medical centers across the country. I'm so deeply grateful for your good work.
President Bush has described groups like the Foundation as "the armies of compassion." And it's clear to all of us that the Foundation is in the very front line of the battle against cancer.
The President's budget proposal for the National Cancer Institute for the next fiscal year is $4.2 billion, a substantial increase over the previous year. The President is also requesting an increase of $600 million for all national institutes of health cancer research in the next fiscal year, for a total of nearly $5 billion. All totaled, President Bush's budget calls for $28 billion to combat cancer in 2002, up $2.2 billion from the previous year.
We're focusing on new treatments . and we're getting to the very molecular basis of cancer. One revolutionary breakthrough came this past spring when we approved a drug called Gleevec - a pill that, in many cases, puts a form of leukemia called CML into remission. Its development marks one of those rare moments when we can legitimately say that it looks like we've beaten back a vicious form of cancer. Gleevec represents the wave of the future because it is the first cancer drug that is the product of molecular targeting - the groundbreaking ability to deliver a drug directly to the diseased cells, leaving the healthy cells alone. Gleevec targets a single cancer-causing protein and - like a light switch - turns it off.
Gleevec is just one of the promising new treatments we have in the pipeline. In 1995, there were 215 cancer drugs in the test phase. Today, that number has nearly doubled to 402.
There's no question that we're making progress. Tomorrow, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will release the Cancer Progress Report 2001 - which describes and illustrates the nation's progress in reducing the cancer burden.
The report shows how the rates of both new cancers and cancer deaths are falling overall, due to factors such as the growing adoption of state-of-the-art cancer treatments, reduced cigarette smoking by adults and increased screenings for breast, cervical and
colorectal cancers. Both smoking and getting screened for cancer are related to behaviors over which individuals have control. But the report also illustrates where the nation is not making progress or is losing ground. For example, greater efforts are needed to reduce tobacco use, especially among youth.
Rising rates of some cancers, such as cancer of the esophagus and melanoma skin cancer, must be addressed. Other areas that need attention include increased overweight and obesity, inadequate protection of the skin from sunlight and unexplained cancer-related health disparities between some subgroups in the U.S. population.
It's also worth noting that in an article published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it was reported that researchers have identified more than 140 proteins in cancer cells in the tissues of the breast, ovary, prostate and esophagus that change in amount as the cells in these tissues grow abnormally.
With additional research, these proteins may serve as early cancer biomarkers or offer possible targets for cancer treatment. Yet the federal government can't beat cancer without your help. We need "the armies of compassion" to join with us. To put it simply, we need you.
So let me applaud you for all you are doing - from the "Mammovan" that provides free mammography screenings to women here in Washington . to your outstanding work on drawing attention to colorectal cancer, which claims nearly 57,000 lives each year but which can often be battled successfully if treated early enough.
Let me also thank you for your work with children through the "Hope Street Kids" project, which has the audacious but wonderful goal of eliminating cancer in children, a goal everyone should support.
I want to give special thanks to Representative Deborah Pryce and her husband Randy Walker. They founded the Hope Street Kids program in memory of their little girl Caroline, who passed away three years ago after fighting bravely against brain cancer.
Thank you, Deborah, for this tremendous program and for your compassionate heart and vision. Countless children will benefit from your initiative.
When I think of things like the Hope Street Kids project and all the many things the Cancer Research Foundation of America does, I'm reminded of a quote by one of my great heroes, Winston Churchill. "Courage," he said, "is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." Your work, and the work of this year's award winners, is rooted in courage, in a brave commitment to fight a deadly adversary. We are making inroads that only a generation ago would have been thought unlikely, if not impossible. And, in the long run, we will win.
Thank you all so very much for your wonderful work. May God bless you, and may God bless America.