We’d like to congratulate our colleagues at the Alliance for Childhood Cancer, our members, and all the advocates who have worked so long and hard to continue making a difference for all children and adolescents with cancer, their families, and for survivors. The last legislative week of 2022 has brought many gifts.
Both the US Senate and House of Representatives unanimously passed the reauthorization of the Childhood Cancer STAR Act for another five years!
In addition, the final omnibus appropriations package contained all of the hoped for funding!
This includes full funding for the Childhood Cancer STAR Act and the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative again in Fiscal Year 2023. In addition, the FY23 Defense Appropriations bill included many topics related to childhood and AYA cancer research and maintained level funding at $130 million for the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program. Here are some other key figures:
NIH/HHS Funding
- The STAR Act received $30M and CCDI received $50M for FY23 – full funding for both programs!
- NIH received $47.5B for FY23, an increase of $2.5B over FY22.
- NCI received $7.1B for FY23, an increase of approximately $190M over FY22.
- The omnibus provided $1.5B to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).
- The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act received $12.6M for FY23.
- Here are the links for report language and summary from the appropriators.
DOD Funding
- The Peer Review Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) received$130M for FY23, which is the same level as FY22. The PRCRP also includes each research category the Alliance requested in our FY23 DOD letter: pediatric, adolescent and young adult cancers; pediatric brain tumors; neuroblastoma; sarcoma; germ cell cancers; blood cancers; lymphoma; and thyroid cancer.
- Here is the report language link.
Our job is not done though.
The reauthorization for Gabriella Miller Kids First 2.0 was held up at the last minute despite a great effort from so many in our community. The DIPG Resolution also got much closer to passage this year and we will continue to push for it in 2023. We will also work for The Comprehensive Cancer Survivorship Act and the Give Kids a Chance Act when they are reintroduced in the new Congress.