Cutbacks Dim Progress on Child Cancers, Doctor Says
Research and therapy to combat childhood cancers has improved so dramatically in the past 25 years that more than half of such cases are being cured, but federal budget cuts are slowing progress toward other advances, a leading cancer specialist says.
Dr. G. Denman Hammond, who heads the Children’s Cancer Study Group--one of two programs that he said treat and study about 80% of American children with cancer--made his comments during the American Cancer Society’s annual science writers’ seminar.
Scientists at the seminar reported progress in the effort to save the lives of the 6,000 U.S. children who develop cancer each year.
Reduction of 20%
Hammond said that there has been a reduction of about 20% over the last two years in National Cancer Institute financing to the Children’s Cancer Study Group, the Pediatric Oncology Group--the other university-level program--and university clinical research programs.
Bob Hadsell, a National Cancer Institute spokesman at the meeting, said that Hammond was “basically correct” in estimating the reduction over two years at 20%.
Hammond said of the budget cuts: “I think it’s going to mean some lives.”
Asked whether he thinks that the annual death toll could reach into the hundreds, Hammond said, “I think that’s the inescapable conclusion you come to talking about children who will get cancer in future years.”
‘Can’t Be Substantiated’
But another spokesman for the National Cancer Institute, Paul Van Nevel, said Hammond’s contention that children will die because of the cuts “certainly can’t be substantiated. The institute has felt the budget is adequate to fund all the high-priority programs. . . . “
The Children’s Cancer Study Group and Pediatric Oncology Group each get about $4 million in annual cancer institute financing, and involve researchers at about 25 to 30 medical centers, where the effectiveness of new therapies used on children with cancer can be evaluated.
But he said participating medical centers are being forced by cutbacks to fire staff members and to abandon promising research strategies.
Hammond, a researcher at USC, blamed the cuts both on overall spending reductions and on congressional emphasis on basic research over clinical research, which is the application of fundamental discoveries in an effort to help people.
Will Discuss Cuts
Scientists from the Children’s Cancer Study Group will meet in Seattle later this month to discuss which research programs will be cut, Hammond said.
Researchers at the seminar said they are improving survival rates for childhood leukemia and even making progress against brain tumors and nerve cancers.
