White House Pushes Fight Against Cancer

With thousands of cancer patients, survivors and their families converging on the capital for a rally Saturday, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore reaffirmed their commitment to conquering the disease with both new spending and administrative proposals.

In his regular Saturday radio address, Clinton spotlighted his push for unprecedented increases in cancer research, as well as the need for more breakthroughs in the search for cancer’s cause and better care for those who suffer from its many forms.

“On this day, as Americans from all walks of life and all parts of our nation renew our national fight against cancer, we do well to remember that we are doing more than curing a disease,” he said. “We are curing the ills the disease may cause, the stigmas, the myths, the barriers to quality care.”

Clinton, whose mother died of cancer, said he was ordering wider access to “cutting-edge clinical trials” in hopes of spurring breakthroughs in cancer cures.

He also renewed his call for Congress to join the fight “against the leading cause of preventable cancer” by passing comprehensive legislation aimed at reducing teenage smoking. Such an effort stalled this year.

More than 1.2 million new cancer cases are diagnosed in this country annually and 564,800 Americans are expected to die of the disease at a rate of about 1,500 each day, according to estimates by the American Cancer Society.

Gore, addressing the crowd on the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol, listed specific initiatives by the administration, including:

* A 1999 budget proposal to increase spending for cancer research 65% over five years at the National Institutes of Health.

* A new strategy to broaden input by cancer patients and their advocates in the setting of research priorities. This has been a prime goal of many in the cancer-fighting world and the administration’s announcement was timed with Saturday’s rally in mind.

* A challenge to Congress to pass a proposal authorizing coverage of the cost of clinical trials for Medicare beneficiaries. Although half of cancer patients are older than 65, they have no access to cutting-edge trials because the research is not a covered benefit of Medicare.

* A directive to the National Cancer Institute to allow doctors and patients to be informed of and enrolled in clinical trials through the Internet.

Gore also made a push for the Senate to move on the confirmation of Jane Henney, an oncologist whom the administration nominated to head the federal Food and Drug Administration. Her background could help speed FDA approval of new cancer drugs, some believe.

Gore spoke to the crowd of his great hope that his generation would be the one that “wins the war on cancer.”

“Some people still say it is impossible to find a cure for cancer,” Gore said. “A hundred years ago, people said exactly the same thing about smallpox.”

In recent years Gore, who often publicly mentions his sister’s death from lung cancer, has made initiatives targeting the disease a major part of his agenda.

Besides Gore, Saturday’s rally featured speeches by prostate cancer survivors retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and financier Michael Milken, whose foundation paid for much of the gathering.

Rally organizers made it clear they wanted to show the nation that the cancer community is united and wants to ensure that cancer research gets its fair share of the billions of dollars spent annually on medical research. “We’ve all learned from AIDS activists that sometimes you need to toot your own horn and shake the tree a little bit,” Dr. Allen Lichter, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, said before the gathering on the Mall. “Don’t expect this to be a one-time event where everyone will go home and say, ‘That was nice.’ ”