Letters: Congress should fund cancer research

None of us is more than one degree away from someone with cancer, whether it’s a friend, family or ourselves. There is perhaps no better way for Congress to demonstrate support for the fight against cancer than by funding that fight.

Each dollar Congress cuts from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute budgets puts us one step further away from offering hope to the lives of so many Americans.

Right now, not only are advancements in current research potentially being derailed, but we are in real danger of turning back the clock by nearly a decade and losing the progress we’ve already made.

Congress now has an opportunity to boost federal funding for cancer research. I hope Rep. Joe Wilson will help make cancer a national priority by voting for at least a $2 billion increase for National Institutes of Health next year. This bold step will show all Americans — more than 15 million of whom are cancer survivors — that Congress stands with them in the fight against cancer.

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 12:08 PM.