Conversation with The Cancer Letter

If Congress follows the fiscal 2018 budget priorities outlined by the White House, the United States will lose its standing as the powerhouse of biomedical research, said Blase Polite, chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Government Relations Committee.

Over decades, Ellen Sigal has emerged as a Washington insider in oncology, someone who has the ability to convene key players in academia, industry and government.

First, Congress should follow through on increasing the NIH budget by $2 billion in fiscal 2017, said Nancy Davidson, president of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Now, President Trump's budget proposal seeks to drop the NIH budget to $25.9 billion. That's $1.2 billion below the FY 2003 level, the year when the doubling was completed. These are absolute numbers. Adjusting for inflation will erode these funds even more.

Hundreds of women were injured or have died from upstaging of unsuspected uterine cancer by power morcellation because FDA didn’t know the actual risk of cancer in fibroids, and hospitals failed to report harm, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.Between 1991 and 2014, FDA cleared 25 submissions for power morcellators to be marketed in the U.S. The GAO report notes that FDA had been aware of the device's potential for spreading tissue since 1991.

The data on the second most common blood cancer—with genomic information from about 1,400 patients—was compiled by the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation through a genome mapping initiative and a $40 million network of clinical trials.

The wide-ranging public health initiative will cease to exist on Jan. 20—eight days short of a year after it was created—when the keys to the White House are handed over to Donald Trump.

In a 17-institution inspection sparked by reports of patient harm and death resulting from power morcellators and contaminated duodenoscopes, FDA found that nearly all hospitals surveyed either failed to report adverse events or didn't have proper reporting and documentation procedures in place.