Cancer disparities researchers say federal funding changes have disrupted their work
A report from the American Association for Cancer Research indicates that federal funding cuts and policy changes have disrupted 93% of surveyed cancer disparity researchers. The cuts, largely stemming from the NIH and NCI, have led to the termination of hundreds of grants and the interruption of critical medical trials.
Why it matters
The disruption of research into health disparities threatens to widen the gap in cancer outcomes for marginalized and rural populations.
Why are some people more likely to get cancer, and to die from it than others? Rural Americans, for instance, are 18% more likely to die from cancer overall, and Black women are 35% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women. That's according to a recent report from the American Association for Cancer Research, or AACR.
Cancer disparity researchers study these gaps and how to close them. Their work has contributed to reductions in many disparities.
But the AACR report found that federal policy changes have affected about 93% of surveyed researchers in this field.
"Many medical trials were stopped in the middle — meaning those patients suddenly didn't receive the treatments they were getting, because the funding stopped," says Mariana Stern , professor of preventive medicine and urology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and chair of the report committee.
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