Also in the News On July 2, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will add chemotherapy treatments from Elsevier Gold Standard's Clinical Pharmacology compendium to the list of Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs it uses to determine which treatments may be covered under Medicare Part B.

On June 30, President George W. Bush signed H.R. 2642, the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, into law (P.L. 110-252). The bill provides funding for another year of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also provides $24.7 billion for domestic programs, including $150 million for NIH. Of that, NCI will receive $25 million.

Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have introduced fiscal year (FY) 2009 appropriations bills for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education that exceed President Bush's budget request. The Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 26, would provide $153.1 billion in discretionary spending - $8 billion more than in FY2008 and $7.7 billion more than the President requested for the agencies it covers. President Bush has threatened to veto any spending bill that exceeds his budget. The House version of the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations was scheduled to be marked-up on June 26 but was postponed until after the July 4 recess.