Advocates: Fighting cancer should be 'national priority'

Leading advocacy groups are pressing for Congress to increase funding for research on cancer, which kills more than 1,000 Americans every day. 

Sixteen groups — including the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) — will urge lawmakers to preserve funds, threatened by budget cuts, for research on defeating cancer this week. 

In a statement on the group's behalf, ACS CAN president Christopher W. Hansen said that defeating cancer should be a "national priority."

"There are more than 13 million cancer survivors in America today, thanks to past investment in research," Hansen said. "But 1,500 people in America still die every day from this disease."

A recent study from advocates at ResearchAmerica found that the automatic federal spending cuts set to take effect in January will cut budgets at federal health agencies by $3.6 billion.

At the National Institutes of Health, specifically, the 7.8 percent cut would be equal to the total amount spent researching hundreds of diseases in 2011, according to the report.

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