On Thursday, February 17, 2022, the Senate passed a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through March 11, 2022. This gives Congress an additional three weeks to finalize the fiscal year (FY) 2022 budget, without shutting down the government. The CR provides flat funding for federal government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is calling on Congress to continue their bipartisan support of federally funded research. Robust, sustained, and predictable funding growth for the NIH and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) baseline budgets are critical in advancing our nation’s work towards combating, and ultimately curing, diseases like cancer.
ASCO is urging Congress to quickly finalize negotiations for FY 2022, because a government shutdown could hurt our nation’s biomedical research and public health infrastructure, at a time when it is still under strain from the COVID-19 public health emergency. Tell Congress to act on federal funding.
ASCO Supports Increased Funding for Research
For FY 2022, ASCO is asking Congress to swiftly pass at least for $49.4 billion for the NIH and $6.99 billion for the NCI. These amounts, which the House passed in July 2021, would provide funding for the President’s proposed new funding agency the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) which would focus on bold, translational research projects to develop treatments and cures for patients with cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes. This increased investment will help spur our nation’s recovery in the wake of the ongoing public health emergency and generate new treatments and better health for all Americans.
