FDA announces National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Oncology Center of Excellence, Project Community has announced a new community-based initiative, National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week, taking place June 17 through June 23, 2021. The 2021 inaugural national observance of National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week is conducted in association with Juneteenth–an annual historic and cultural celebration or holiday in the U.S. and recognized in some global communities where people of African heritage reside.
The purpose of this new initiative is to increase cancer awareness in one of the most medically underserved segments of the U.S. population. During National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week, the FDA will share information on social media on topics such as cancer clinical trial participation and population specimen donations among minorities and national genetic databases for cancer research.
Cancer awareness conversations result in a decreased cancer mortality rate and increase life expectancy among all racial and ethnic groups, including Black Americans.
Visit the FDA’s website to learn more about upcoming events, social media resources and more.
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure confirmed to lead Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
The Senate recently voted to confirm Chiquita Brooks-LaSure as Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator. Her record shows that Ms. Brooks-LaSure has been a longtime supporter of increasing patient access to health care, is committed to health equity and improving the health of people everywhere, and has a detailed understanding of Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Ms. Brooks-LaSure has more than 20 years of experience in health policy, contributing to implementation of significant health care legislation such as the ACA, which has afforded health care coverage to more than 31 million Americans. As deputy director for policy at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight within CMS, and earlier at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as director of coverage policy, she led HHS’ implementation of Affordable Care Act coverage and insurance reform policy provisions.
As administrator, Ms. Brooks-LaSure will oversee services for low-income and senior Americans in Medicare and Medicaid. In Ms. Brook-LaSure’s role, she will be instrumental in ensuring that hospitals, health systems and health care providers have the resources necessary to advance the transformation of health care, ensure access to coverage and make health care affordable to all people in America.
President Biden’s fiscal year 2022 budget includes boost in health funding
On May 28, President Joe Biden released his full fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget, which details the administration’s proposal for how to distribute federal funds across the government. The budget includes two of Biden’s recent proposals, the American Families Plan and the American Jobs Plan.
As it relates to health, the budget request provides $133.7 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an increase of 23% over current funding. This includes a total of $51 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an additional $9 billion in funding for NIH. Of this increase, $6.5 billion would be allocated for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which the administration proposes housing at NIH and would initially focus on cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease; the other $2.5 billion would support NIH’s core activities. The budget request also provides $8.7 billion, an increase of $1.6 billion, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is the largest annual jump in nearly two decades.
The budget request includes additional details on the ARPA-H proposal, which the Prevent Cancer Foundation initially reported on in April. The $6.5 billion allocated to ARPA-H would be available for three years and would fund biomedical research and research training. The goal is to drive transformational innovation in health research and speed application and implementation of health breakthroughs.
Additionally, a federal advisory panel would be established to provide a mechanism for interagency coordination and idea generation. ARPA-H would have a distinctive culture and organizational structure, and would complement NIH’s existing research portfolio, providing an agile and flexible arm to advance biomedical science quickly and robustly.
Read the president’s entire budget proposal here.
Prevent Cancer Advocacy Workshop next week
There is still space available! Join us for our annual Advocacy Workshop: A Patient-Centered Approach to Multi-Cancer Early Detection Testing to be held virtually next Thursday June 17 from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. The Workshop will bring together patients, providers, advocacy organizations and other stakeholders to engage in a dialogue around emerging innovation in cancer prevention and detection, with a focus on multi-cancer early detection screening tests
Multi-cancer early detection (MCED) tests use a blood test and our vast understanding of the human genome to help patients and their health care providers to test for multiple types of cancer, with the hope of finding cancer early, before it has spread to other parts of the body. Early cancer detection is needed beyond the five cancer types for which routine screening and national guidelines already exist: breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer (for those at high risk) and prostate cancer.
View our agenda here and click the banner below to register.
