Today the administration released the details of its proposed FY 2026 budget request, including a nearly 40% reduction in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
A statement from the Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Chief Executive Officer Clifford Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO follows:
“ASCO is alarmed about significant proposed funding cuts to the NIH and NCI. If implemented, these cuts would be devastating to the pace and progress of cancer research in America.
“ASCO maintains that federally funded cancer research is the single best investment our country has ever made. Today, more than 18 million Americans are alive thanks to federally funded cancer research, screening, and prevention and 60% of pediatric clinical trials are NIH-funded. Slashing federal research funding at a time when science is revolutionizing cancer care risks leaving millions of patients without the promise and potential of life-saving breakthroughs. It also risks slowing America’s biomedical economic engine and forcing a generation of young researchers to abandon their careers.
“America became the global leader in medical research and innovation through deliberate design and decades of intentional investment. Proposed funding cuts threaten all we have gained through this investment.
“The U.S. cannot afford to abdicate its leadership in scientific innovation. The path to conquering cancer is to keep pushing science forward and ASCO will continue relentlessly defending and advocating for robust federal cancer research funding.”