After years of advocacy emphasizing the lack of kidney cancer federal funding, on Tuesday, May 17th, the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY17 Defense Appropriations Act and forwarded the bill to the full House.  The fiscal year 2017 Defense appropriations bill includes a $10 million line item within the Defense Health Program, Congressional Directed Medical Research Program for kidney cancer research. This is great news for the kidney cancer community. If this legislation is enacted, kidney cancer will have a dedicated pool of $10 million to be awarded to kidney cancer specific grant applicants.

From the Federal Fiscal Year 2006 through FY 2015, ACKC has been successful in having kidney cancer included as a disease eligible to receive grants from the Department of Defense’s cancer research program. Due to our efforts, the DoD has so far awarded $9.1 million in grants through FY2014 — see list of all recipients for a brief description of their work here.

We have a ways to go with the Senate and its appropriations process. However, this is a great “next step” in our efforts to obtain our fair share of cancer research funding. If you can join us in our advocacy efforts, please sign up here www.ackc.org/advocacy/become-an-advocate.

To read the press release and link to the full Congressional report click here:

http://appropriations.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=394520