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Cancer advocates, researchers, clinicians and patients are speaking out in a new STAT News article published this week about the devastating impact the cuts to federal research funding will have on progress being made in deadly diseases like pancreatic cancer. Read the full article here.
PanCAN President and CEO Julie Fleshman spoke with reporter Angus Chen about what these cuts, including to the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the Department of Defense (DOD) — which defunded the Pancreatic Cancer Research Program in FY25 — will mean for the researchers who are working tirelessly to accelerate progress for patients.
“The program was one of the most important funding sources for diseases like pancreatic cancer”, said Julie Fleshman. “When my father died from pancreatic cancer about 26 years ago, there was hardly any funding dedicated to the disease. Gradually, money began to flow into the field, through programs like the CDMRP, and with it came results.”
Howard Crawford, the scientific director at the Henry Ford Pancreatic Cancer Center in Detroit and a member of PanCAN’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, also spoke to STAT saying he was “floored” when he learned the draft CDMRP budget had zero dollars for pancreatic cancer. He also spoke about how PanCAN’s advocacy efforts were successful in getting more funding at the NIH and DOD and eventually creating the Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act. And how that has helped fund his own pancreatic cancer studies. “Funding opportunities for pancreatic cancer research are already scarce and eliminating one of the major funding sources, even for a year, will destroy the careers of some bright young scientists and any groundbreaking discoveries they might have made otherwise in the years to come,” he said.
Get the latest information about PanCAN’s advocacy efforts and how you can raise your voice to help protect federal research funding. Learn more here.
