Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL)
visits with cancer researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa
CREDIT:
Daily Loaf
When Rep. Dennis Ross
(R-FL) toured Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Center on
Monday, he was likely hoping to connect with his constituents during the August
recess. Instead, he ended up hearing quite a few
critiques from
cancer researchers who say that deep sequester cuts are currently undermining
their work.
Since Congress failed to
reach a deal to avert the sequester, deep across-the-board cuts are currently
compromising everything from fighting wildfires toenrolling kids in Heart Start.
Thanks to an 8.2 percent cut to the National Institute of Health (NIH), medical
research has been similarly undermined.
Before the sequester cuts kicked in this spring, scientists warned that
slashing NIH’s funds could set back scientific innovation
for a generation.
On Monday, researchers at
Moffitt Cancer Center echoed many of those concerns. Moffitt currently gets
about $62 million in cancer research grants — but, since well over half of that
comes from the NIH, sequestration has thrown much of its funds into
question. Researchers told their congressman that’s preventing them
from being able to improve outcomes for cancer patients.
“We had a large grant for
multiple lung cancer projects, (but) we’re having trouble getting it renewed
because there’s just not enough money in the pot for that,” Eric Haura, a
practicing oncology doctor, told Ross during his visit on
Monday. “Less money is less science. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s definitely harder to
get a grant,” post-doctoral research fellow Daniel Verduzco explained. “We’ve
been feeling the pain. My boss tells me you’ve just got to try to be really
frugal with your experiments.”
Ross told the researchers
that once Congress returns in September, he hopes to work on reversing the
recent cuts to NIH. “We’ve got to keep the investment in NIH a priority,” he said.
In fact, lawmakers have
already acted swiftly to reverse some of sequestration’s damage — but only when
it comes to the cuts that directly impact them. Back in April, Congress voted
to restore funding to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after sequester
cuts created long lines at the airport that made their travel more difficult. They didn’t save other domestic
programs from
similar spending cuts, including ones that directly impact the Americans
battling cancer. Cancer clinics — many of which have been forced to delay chemotherapy
treatment as a
result of sequester cuts — strongly criticized the move, saying that lawmakers should have taken care of their
patients before
taking care of airport delays.
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