By O. Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa)
Trump Administration cuts to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could reduce the budget for the Iowa Cancer Registry. The Registry operates with a combination of state and federal funding.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and we don’t yet know where the cuts are going to have an impact,” said Sarah Nash, director of research at the Iowa Cancer Registry.
In 1973, the National Cancer Institute launched registries in Iowa and eight other states to track cancer rates and there are now cancer registries in 46 states, gathering data on cancer cases. While the president’s budget plan does not call for elimination of the National Cancer Institute, it does call for a 44% cut in funding of the agency that oversees the institute.
Nash said federal funding touches every part of the effort to reduce cancer. “The research, the surveillance, the screening, the early detection, the access to care pieces,” Nash said. “…Having the federal cuts, it could potentially devastating, I think, to this problem that we’re all trying to address together.”
The Iowa Cancer Registry’s annual report shows Iowa has the second highest rate of newly diagnosed cancers. Governor Kim Reynolds has proposed spending $1 million in state funds to support University of Iowa research to evaluate the risk factors that may be contributing to Iowa’s rising cancer rate.
Kelly Wells Sittig is executive director of the Iowa Cancer Consortium, a non-profit that provides resources and technical assistance to agencies and institutions that are working to address cancer-related issues. “We’re really pleased the governor has shown support in acknowledging the importance of figuring out what’s happening with cancer here in Iowa and making an investment in that,” Wells Sittig said. “…I think it’s also important to note that cancer is so complex…and that means we are going to need to invest for a long term and in a lot of different ways.”
Wells Sittig and Nash made their comments on a recent episode of “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS.
