On April 20, President Bush signed the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program Reauthorization Act (HR 1132) into law. Introduced by Senator Barbara Mikulski in the Senate on February 15, 2007 and by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin in the House on February 16, 2007, the bill was a popular bipartisan bill. NCI Director Dr. John E. Niederhuber joined President Bush and the bill sponsors at the signing ceremony at the White House.

The bill authorizes the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program to provide breast and cervical cancer screenings to uninsured and underinsured women living at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. Since its inception in 1991, the program has served more than 2.9 million women and provided more than 6.9 million screening examinations. The program is funded at approximately $200 million annually, and is administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in all 50 states and U.S. territories.

In 2007, an estimated 180,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 11,000 will be diagnosed with cervical cancer. The program is expected to provide more than 700,000 screenings for low-income and underinsured women. Reauthorizing this program recognizes screening and early detection as an important part of the nation’s fight against breast and cervical cancer.