National Cancer Institute
In the nearly four decades since passage of the landmark National Cancer Act of 1971, America’s progress against cancer has been significant and steady — although, typical of science, most often measured in small increments. In 1991, cancer death rates began to drop, by about one percent each year. Of late, many cancer incidence rates have also been decreasing on an annual basis.
This incremental progress is particularly impressive, when viewed through the prism of other, more sobering statistics. Cancer, as a disease burden, is rising across the globe. By the year 2010, cancer is expected to pass heart disease as the number-one killer. Clearly, our work — in the United States and worldwide — is far from complete.
Cancer affects each of us, whether directly, as a patient, or in the reflected struggles of a loved one or a friend. It is no surprise that, as director of the National Cancer Institute, the questions I most often hear — from cancer survivors, from patient advocates, and from legislators — begin with “What will it take…” What will it take, I am asked, to accelerate the downward curve of cancer death rates? What will it take to deliver on the promise that cancer can be made more chronic than killer? What will it take, in dollars, to rid us of this burden?
This document is an attempt to bring some realistic answers, with appropriate dimensions, to these questions. It is based on science — on the exciting forefronts in laboratory research that are vastly expanding our knowledge of cancer’s origins, processes, and weaknesses. It is based on the need to more rapidly translate this new knowledge into safe, effective, targeted interventions for cancer patients. It is about the resources that could hasten our efforts. It is about the importance of increasing our intellectual capacity, our workforce, to take full advantage of the opportunity to make real changes.
In sum, this document is the National Cancer Institute’s professional judgment of what a financial infusion could make possible and how NCI would spend those monies.
In the pages ahead, I hope you will also recognize NCI’s deep commitment to outstanding science that benefits all Americans. Cancer is — and will continue to be — a model for the study of disease biology, for new thinking about the delivery of healthcare, for the development of electronic medical records, and for a healthcare system based on the uniqueness of each individual. Those responsibilities, those commitments, drive us — in NCI’s own laboratories, through the thousands of outstanding scientists we support across America’s cancer research enterprise, and in the vital collaborations we foster around the world. This document is, after all, about progress, about opportunity, and about reducing the cancer burden for all people in every nation.
John E. Niederhuber, M.D.
Director, National Cancer Institute
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