AACR report: Pandemic led to nearly 10 million missed cancer screenings in 7 months

ABSTRACT

[...]COVID-19 affected all things in everybody's lives, but for patients with cancer it was really a much harder time," Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, FAACR, professor of medicine, surgery and molecular and medical pharmacology at University of California, Los Angeles, director of the tumor immunology program at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, past AACR president, and chair of the report's steering committee, told Healio ;HemOnc Today. Building off the pandemic shining a light on the necessities of science and research, the AACR report included a call and action with recommendations for federal lawmakers to further support efforts to expand and enhance health care. The AACR called for * at least $10 billion for the NIH and its grantees to offset pandemicrelated research costs as emergency supplemental funding, as proposed in the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act of2021;* funding increases of at least $3.5 billion for NIH and $1.1 billion for the NCI in fiscal year 2022, for total funding of $46.4 billion for NIH and $7.6 billion for NCI;* policies that broaden health care coverage and reduce inequities in access to health care, such as expanding Medicaid;and * increased diversity in clinical trials and efforts to alleviate the financial burden on prospective trial participants by reimbursing patients for ancillary trial-related costs, such as transportation and lodging, as established in the DIVN1 -https//media.proquest.com/media/hms/PFT/1/CaCpM?_a=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&_s=ASRlzCrgmzWR0jTNPlDJ055q%2FU4%3D ERSE Act.