OPINION -- Shortly after my 43rd birthday in 1995, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and endured four rounds of chemotherapy and seven weeks of radiation. Since then, I’ve had at least 20 surgeries to remove tumors, some pre-cancerous and some benign.
I owe my life to the tremendous cancer research done prior to my diagnosis, and I know most cancer survivors feel the same way. Without research, the successful chemotherapy and radiation protocols used today would still be on the drawing board. Drugs like Tamoxifen would not be around to stave off future breast cancers. The anti-estrogen breast cancer therapy is a true miracle drug for women like me to reduce and stabilize the hormone in my body and help prevent future cancer from developing.
Research saved my life. And it has made impressive leaps and bounds since my diagnosis in 1995. Just imagine what the next five or 10 years will hold, but only if we restore federal cancer research funding to levels that once existed.
When you account for inflation, the dollars spent on cancer research are only about three-quarters what they used to be. Right now, not only are advances in current research being derailed, but we are in jeopardy of turning back the clock and losing the progress we’ve made in the last decade.
Research is vital to end suffering and death from cancer! That’s why I traveled recently to Washington, D.C. with the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network to urge Oregon’s congressional representatives to support a $6 billion increase in federal research funding at the National Institutes of Health—with $1 billion going to the National Cancer Institute.
Currently, only seven percent of cancer research grants get funded. It’s scary to think that a cure could lay in the many worthy projects that can’t get off the ground because they lack funding. Who knows where the next cancer breakthrough will come from.
If I was diagnosed with cancer today, I wouldn’t get as sick from the side effects of chemotherapy. Advanced protocols would make my treatment regimen easier to handle, and new therapies could cure me even faster. Women diagnosed today and in the future, could have it even better.
As I look back on being a 20-year cancer survivor, I’d like to celebrate by ensuring even more women can say “I’m cancer free.” I’m proud to be one of the 15 million cancer survivors alive today—thanks to research.
None of us is more than One Degree from cancer. There’s no better way for Congress to commit to the fight against cancer than by funding cancer research adequately and consistently. During October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, join me at www.OneDegreeProject.org to urge your lawmakers to increase federal research funding and create a world with less cancer.
Lois is the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Oregon State Lead Ambassador in Seaside, Oregon.
