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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Awards, Washington, D.C.
DATE:		June 7, 2000

Supporting Cancer Research

Thank you, Sam, for your warm introduction. And thank you to everyone who has joined us here this evening. I'm delighted to be here. Sam and I did this same Mutt and Jeff routine last year.

Tonight I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming you all to the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation Awards. I want to thank and congratulate Jack Smith and Sam Wells and the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for the awards they'll be presenting tonight.

We are already deep within the golden age of biomedical research. An age that has truly strengthened the health of the country and the world, and brought us to a point where the only thing that impedes our progress is the limit of our imagination and resources.

I'd like to take a moment to recognize one of the truly outstanding leaders of this golden age - Dr. Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Klausner went toe-to-toe with Sam two Sundays ago - and survived to tell about it.

Perhaps that's because survival was very much at the center of their discussion. As Dr. Klausner told Sam and the rest of our country - survival rates for cancer are going up.

But we're moving beyond survival. We're reaching out to help those who cancer affects the most - our seniors. We're helping more seniors to participate in clinical trials that test promising new therapies -- not only for cancer - potentially for many other illnesses as well.

This morning, we announced Medicare coverage to seniors who want to participate in clinical trials. Thanks to this change in coverage, thousands of seniors could join trials - this year alone. That's a dramatic contribution in our fight against cancer -- as well as a giant step forward for all of medicine.

Perhaps the most telling sign of our progress is the 22 years of GM Cancer Awards that we celebrate tonight. In this room are some of the earliest -- and most daring - research pioneers and some of the world's greatest scientists and scientific leaders.

Most Americans do not know who you are -- let alone that you are part of a pantheon of greatness that is reshaping the world on a scale comparable to the Age of Exploration and the Industrial Revolution.

I'm talking about Monroe Wall, and Mansukh Wani scientists at the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina. Together, they're working on isolating and purifying plant compounds for pharmaceuticals.

I'm talking about, Bert Vogelstein -- Professor of Oncology and Pathology and Investigator at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He's mapping how cancer develops within the body.

And, I'm talking about Avram Hershko - Professor of Biochemistry at the Biochemistry, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel and Alexander Varshavsky - Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. Together, they've discovered a critical system within cellular regulation.

This year's five winners and all of the past recipients of what many call the Nobel Prize for cancer research have a unique place among us because they are unlocking the secrets of cancer. However, as you know better than anyone does, we are not there yet.

To cross that threshold to a cure will take sustained research - and the tireless support - of government, academic health centers, private research institutions and major corporations. That's why this administration remains deeply committed to supporting biomedical research. Since 1993, we've increased the NIH budget by 7.6 billion dollars. As Rick told Sam last week, he could use more. I agree.

But government can not carry on this monumental struggle against cancer alone. We need private sector support, ingenuity - and recognition for the leading cancer researchers. That's why I want to congratulate and thank General Motors, again, for putting a spotlight on heroes whose work is as complex as any cell - and as crucial to life as the beat of a human heart.

Ben Franklin once said: "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." I can think of no greater investment than supporting the explorers who are blazing the trail and the young scientists they are training. With money for research and training. With state of the art facilities. And, of course, with formal recognition and words of praise for extraordinary - even miraculous - accomplishments.

Tonight you will hear many such words. It is a great honor to add mine.

Now, with pleasure, I'll turn the microphone back to someone who's long added his voice to the chorus of support and encouragement for the courageous work that will one day bring a cure for cancer. I give you, my friend, Sam Donaldson...Thank you.

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