Administration's FY2021 Budget Proposes 9 Percent Cut to NCI
The Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposal this month, which calls for a drastic 9 percent cut to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
The White House proposal seeks $38 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which is almost $4 billion less than NIH received in FY2020. President Trump has sought significant decreases to the NIH budget every year but Congress has held firm in its bipartisan support of medical research.
→ Read more: Trump’s budget proposes slashing NIH, NCI (The Cancer Letter, 2.14.20)
While we are pleased to see that the president’s budget includes the second year of funding for the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, an overall cut to NIH would undercut gains in one specific area. Many NIH grants are for basic research that could apply to multiple conditions.
It’s important to emphasize that the President’s budget is merely a suggestion. Over the coming months, Congress will decide what is available for each agency and program in a deliberate process, with input from stakeholders, including us — and hopefully you.
It will be critical as childhood cancer advocates, patients, families and supporters, that we appeal to our representatives. Use our action alert to join us in asking Congress to continue supporting life-saving progress in research and medicine with strong and reliable funding of the NIH. That research directly saves the lives of children with cancer, which remains the number one disease killer of children.
Thousands of children will be diagnosed this year and progress in research is almost entirely dependent on federal funding. Childhood cancer doctors and researchers in your state and around the country are dependent on that funding to advance new treatments and give us hope.
Tell Congress that children with cancer can't afford any cuts to life-saving research progress:
DC Action Opportunities:
We’ll be participating in coalition-led grassroots action efforts on Capitol Hill in the next few months where NCI funding is sure to be a key issue.
One Voice Against Cancer’s lobby day is May 11th-12th — registration and information about scholarships is forthcoming.
The Alliance for Childhood Cancer will be holding its 9th Annual Childhood Cancer Action Days early this summer. We hope to have more information to share with you soon about event details, registration, and scholarships.
We’ll continue to bring you updates on the appropriations process and action opportunities. Sign up to receive a notification by email when we post on this blog: