Pentagon Is Caught in Battle of the Sexes

The Defense Department is used to dealing with wars, but recently it has been drawn into an especially intractable conflict: the war between the sexes.

The battle is being waged between advocates for patients with breast cancer and those with prostate cancer, the two leading cancers of women and men, respectively. Each group is clamoring for Pentagon dollars to support its cause. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, and the issue will be settled one way or another in the wording of the 1997 defense appropriations bill, which will be decided in conference when Congress returns from its summer recess.

The Defense Department has allocated money for breast cancer research since 1993, the result of a nationwide grass-roots lobbying effort led by the National Breast Cancer Coalition. The amount of the set-aside is decided each year by the House and Senate appropriations committees, and is administered by the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, which convenes panels of scientific experts to decide which research proposals to fund. In the program’s first four years, the department doled out $210 million, $25 million, $150 million and $70 million for research into the prevention and treatment of breast cancer.

Advocates for patients with prostate cancer have received about $5 million a year from the Pentagon. But taking their cue from the highly effective breast cancer research lobby--which itself took lessons from AIDS research advocates--the men are pushing for more money.

Former junk-bond trader Michael Milken, whose diagnosis with prostate cancer in 1993 led to his founding CaPCURE, a foundation dedicated to prostate cancer research, is leading the charge with the help of Cassidy & Associates, a lobbying group. Prostate-victim advocates note their cancer was diagnosed in 244,000 men last year, compared with 182,000 diagnoses of breast cancer in women. Prostate cancer killed 40,400 men, compared with 46,000 deaths from breast cancer.

No one denies the need for more prostate cancer research, but the men’s efforts have prompted concerns among those focusing on breast cancer that less money will be left for their well-established cause. Some fear an outright battle between the two causes could jeopardize the program overall.

The prostate lobby has made its influence felt in the Senate. The subcommittee version of the Senate appropriations bill called for $150 million for breast cancer and $7 million for prostate cancer. In full committee, however, Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) called for an additional $93 million for prostate research.

The House version of the bill currently calls for $100 million for breast cancer research and nothing for prostate cancer.

Fran Visco, who heads the National Breast Cancer Coalition, said she hopes sufficient funding can be found for both groups and the situation can be resolved without a winner and a loser. “We have done well by not engaging in disease wars,” she said. “If we pit one against the other, then we’re all going to lose.”

Greg Gill, senior vice president of Cassidy & Associates, said his group would continue to push for more emphasis on prostate cancer research. Gill added that progress there almost certainly would pay off in the battle against other kinds of cancer.