Federal cuts pose threat to hospital
By Harshil Shah
Published on Thursday, May 25, 2006
The Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of the 39 National Cancer Institute's comprehensive research centers and part of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, will be hard-hit by cuts in President George W. Bush's proposed 2007 federal budget.
According to Norris Cotton Cancer Center spokesperson Mary Hawkins, 77 percent of the center's funding is from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Health, which are both government-funded organizations.
Peter Davies, spokesperson for the American Cancer Society, said that even though the budget cuts will affect neither the Society, which is privately funded, nor the funding received by the Norris Cotton Cancer Center from the Society, the center would be deeply affected by the budget cuts because federal funding is its largest source of income.
In a statement, the American Cancer Society said that it was "deeply disappointed that the President proposed a cut in funding for the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
The budget cuts could threaten the recent downward trend of deaths due to cancer, the second-leading cause of death nationwide. Moreover, the cuts could hinder the development of technologies and programs that help prevent, detect and treat cancer.
According to Davies, the budget reduction means a cut in the breast and cervical early detection program for women with limited access to preventative medical care. The program is responsible for the detection of 23,000 breast cancer cases and 75,000 pre-cancerous cervical lesions, even though it serves only 20 percent of eligible women, according to the public statement from the American Cancer Society.
In 2006, New Hampshire reported 2,610 deaths due to cancer, with 6,470 newly-reported cases, according to a report released by the American Cancer Society.
This is the second time that the Bush administration has proposed cutting medical research funding, despite a 2002 proposal authored by the Administration that called for the elimination of cancer by 2015.