Tell The Research Funders: It’s Time to Get It Together
Send the message below to leaders of key government agencies, pharmaceutical companies and private institutions that conduct and fund breast cancer research, by completing the form below.
Text of Email to Research Funders
To Whom It May Concern:
As an individual deeply concerned about the rising tide of breast cancer, I urge you to do your part to revolutionize the state of breast cancer research. Over 30 federal agencies and dozens of foundations, pharmaceutical and biotech companies are conducting billions of dollars worth of cancer research every year. Yet despite all our efforts, the incidence of breast cancer has nearly tripled in the past 50 years. A woman's lifetime risk has increased from 1 in 20 in the 1950’s to 1 in 7 today, and the cure and prevention of this disease are still far out of reach. It will take fundamental changes in breast cancer research to achieve these goals, which I know we share. We need:
- A more coordinated research effort.
There is no system in place to ensure that studies conducted across the country by public and private entities complement each other. - More research focused on the most pressing questions in breast cancer.
To get the right answers we have to ask the right questions. We need more outcome-driven research focused on the following questions:- Who needs treatment and who doesn’t: which “breast cancers” will never become life threatening?
- How can we more effectively and less toxically treat metastatic disease, and how can we prevent aggressive breast cancers from becoming metastatic?
- What scientific tools can be developed that will help make the link between information about environmental exposures and health-outcome data?
- Why do different racial and ethnic groups have different breast cancer incidence and mortality rates, and what can be done to successfully address those differences?
I ask you, as a key player in the field of breast cancer research, to commit to work with other institutions to coordinate breast cancer research in the United States, and to devote your funding dollars to outcome-driven research that addresses the questions that are most important to people living with this disease.
[Your optional message added here]
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your State]
This email will be sent to the following institutions:
- National Institutes of Health
- National Cancer Institute
- National Institute of Environmental Health Science
- Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs
- American Cancer Society
- Breast Cancer Research Foundation
- Novartis
- AstraZeneca
- Avon Products Foundation
- Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
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