Lobbying in Washington DC

Yoko and I went to Washington DC at the end of July. Actually, we were in DC on July 28th and 29th. On the 28th we met with Madeline Otto, who is the legislative assistant to Senator Bill Nelson (Dem-FL). On the 29th we met with Republican Senator Mel Martinez's legislative assistant, Michael Bassett, as well as Kathy Mitchell Deputy Policy Advisor to Representative Tim Mahoney. We were busy while in DC and did not have time to do a lot of touring. We did stroll the Mall after dinner on the 28th and I snapped this rather poor picture.

Here is what I told the legislative aides: Lung cancer killed 160,320 Americans in 2007. That is more than all troops in Iraq. It is like a 747 crashing every day and killing everyone on board. It is four times the number of deaths from breast cancer (40,910) three times the number of deaths from colon cancer (52,180) six times the number of deaths from prostate cancer (27,050) ten times more than liver cancer (16,780) kidney cancer (12,890) and 20 times the number of deaths from melanoma (8,110). In fact, the number of deaths from lung cancer accounts for more than 30% of all cancer deaths. The sad fact is that the National Cancer Institute, the Center for Disease Control and the Department of Defence total budget for cancer research in 2007 was allocated as follows: $971 million for breast cancer; $323 million for prostate cancer; $287 milion for colon cancer and $226 million for lung cancer. That works out to $23,754 per death for breast cancer, and $1,414 per lung cancer death. The NCI' budget is suppose to be a-political, but obviously it is not. Breast cancer (five years or more) survival is now 89%,up from 75% in 1976, prostate cancer survival is 99%, up from 67% in 1976, colon cancer is 64%, up from 50%. But Lung Cancer survival rates are still at 15%, up from 13% in 1976.

People are dying and our government has allowed research priorities to become tainted by politics, rather than making research dollar available where they can do the most good. This is not a matter of "taking dollars away" from breast cancer researchers. It IS a matter of being sure that the 70 million Americans who are current or former smokers get some attention as well.

I asked all three legislative aides to look into supporting The Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act, which is a bill (S 3187) introduced by Senators Chuck Hagel and Diane Feinstein. The bill would direct that the NCI, CDC and DOD allocate the dollars necessary to reduce lung cancer mortality by 50% by 2013. The legislation will not be acted upon this session, but we are laying the ground work for the next session of Congress in January.

I explained to the legislative aides that we need a national screening program for lung cancer using low-dose CT scans. Researches estimate that lung cancer mortality could be reduced by 70% if the disease was detected early. X-Ray is not good enough. (I am a case in point.) I explained that lung cancer is deadly because it is generally caught too late (stage III and IV) for effective treatment. Early detection would make a big difference, but there is no agreed standard for screening.

All three legislative aides were naturally sympathetic, but it seemed clear to me that there is no "political points" to be gained from supporting "body part specific" legislation. My point to them was that they can look like leaders (rather than followers) by getting on board with this issue early because lung cancer is going to be an epidemic in this country. At the very least they could call for hearings to have the NCI, et al. explain and defend their budget allocations.

All of these meetings were arranged by a guy named Will Furtado with Lung Cancer Alliance. LCA is the ONLY organization specifically aimed at promoting lung cancer advocacy. It is a small organization with only 7 full time staff and a $2.3 million budget. I promised that I would work with LCA to establish a Florida chapter.