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Date: April 18, 1995
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact   Rayford Kytle, PHS  (202) 260-3388

This grant announcement, with funding of up to $3 million in FY '95, is the first of several that will be available to support innovative projects to meet high priority areas identified in the action plan, with total funding of up to $10 million in FY '95. The current announcement offers grants of up to $50,000 in each of two years for developmental, exploratory or pilot projects that could serve as the basis for larger research and outreach projects in the future.

The action plan is co-chaired by Frances Visco, Esq., president, National Breast Cancer Coalition, and Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., deputy assistant secretary for women's health and assistant surgeon general in the U.S. Public Health Service, in the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala said, "With one in eight women facing breast cancer over a lifetime, this announcement will help spur just the kind of creativity and vision in science, services and outreach demanded by this growing epidemic."

Visco underscored that "As a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer and as an activist, I believe that the collaborative, innovative effort embodied in the action plan will bring us closer to the day this disease is eradicated. This grant program is an exciting first step in that overall plan."

Blumenthal, who directs the PHS Office on Women's Health that coordinates implementation of the action plan, said, "The fight against breast cancer is a top national health priority. This program is intended to bring the best ideas to bear on this devastating public health problem. The result of this work hopefully will yield life-saving dividends for American women."

The grant program is funded by the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer through the National Cancer Institute, part of PHS' National Institutes of Health in HHS.

Ed Sondik, Ph.D., acting NCI director said, "NCI is fully committed to the implementation of the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer. We hope to attract the best and most innovative research and outreach projects to address this terrible disease."

Applications should focus on one or more of six priority areas: information dissemination, national biological resource bank, consumer involvement, breast cancer etiology, clinical trials accessibility and issues related to the breast cancer susceptibility gene. The first awards will be made in September 1995. Many types of organizations are eligible to apply for the grants, including universities, hospitals, units of state, local or federal government, and other domestic gateway.html and for-profit organizations. Applications from minority and women investigators are encouraged.

Interested applicants may write or call the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer staff at (202) 401-9587. Applications for the grant programs are due by June 14, 1995.

The National Action Plan on Breast Cancer is the product of a national conference of consumers, advocacy groups, private industry, academics, government representatives and members of Congress, convened at the request of President Clinton by Secretary Shalala. The conference produced a national action plan of recommendations to combat breast cancer through research, health care service delivery and the enactment of public policy. The work of the action plan should make significant progress in eradicating breast cancer as a threat from the lives of American women.