I am Joanne Freundlich, a wife and mother of two young children.  I have an MBA in finance, and experience in securities analysis and teaching finance at a major university.

        I heard the words, “You have ovarian cancer” about 5 years ago, when my son was 6 months old, and my daughter was 5.  The past 5 years have been hell for our family: numerous abdominal surgeries and countless chemotherapies have not arrested my disease (I am still on treatment); and my family has gone through years of worry.  I am not alone; nearly 6 million Americans have heard, “You have cancer” in the past 5 years.  More than 12 million Americans have died of cancer since the “War Against Cancer” was declared in 1971.  Few of us are the proverbial 95 year old who many think is the typical cancer
patient.  And cancer incidence and mortality rates are rising despite progress for some cancers.

        In September, as an individual with no help from large organizations, I began a letter-writing campaign to make people aware of what is not being done for cancer research.  I herewith submit 3000 signed petition letters from all across the country. These letters were passed from person to person, individually, and mailed to me, often with personal notes about families decimated by cancer.  We ask for full funding of the National Cancer Institute’s 1996 Bypass Budget request.  We need more cancer research, and sufficient funding so that money for one cancer does not come at the expense of another.  Yes, I want a cure for ovarian cancer-preferably today-for myself and other women.  But I also love my son, and I do not want a cure for me to come at the cost of his life.

        Cancer gets no respect.  Cancer research received only $2 billion last year in the face of 1.2 million casualties, 565,000 dead (200,000 under 65), and an economic cost of more than $110 billion. Cancer, a disease expected to be the #1 killer by the year 2000, has no National Tumor Registry to keep track of the number and epidemiology of victims- -and numbers that do come out are downplayed. Presidentally-appointed experts say that $3 billion is needed to fight a winning war, and only two-thirds of that amount is appropriated.  If the “experts” are incompetent, fire them, and get ones you trust, but fight the war.  If a foreign power killed 565,000 Americans in one year, we would declare all- out war.  Why do we do less to fight the enemy within?

        More cancer research will also help our economy.  The space program and the success of our military during Desert Storm were not accidents.  Our government committed to put a man on the moon, and to have a strong defense industry.  We saw research as an opportunity, a “public good” deserving of public funding.  It still is.  More cancer research means more high-paying jobs, the hope of better treatments and lower health care costs, more exports to a world hungry for cancer cures, and maintaining America’s eminence in the world science community.   Nobody does science and medicine better; we just don’t do enough of it.

        The private sector alone cannot finance this progress.  Basic research is expensive and risky in terms of results and time-frame of results. Worse, FDA policies and talk of profit controls have made the already-risky and costly business of producing new drugs even riskier.  Biotechnology firms raised less than $1 billion in the capital markets in early 1994 before their most active underwriter stopped making markets in their stocks, accelerating a decline in stock prices.  From where will progress come if both the government and the private sector cut back?

        We must treat cancer research as vital to the national interest.  Ignoring cancer will not make it go away.  Funding 2/3 of the NCI budget is not good enough.  Fewer researchers fighting cancer now than in 1984 is not good enough, especially since a sizable chunk of those researchers are earmarked for AIDS.  I might add that an earlier speaker mentioned that ten AIDS drugs have been developed and marketed in the past 15 years, far more than new cancer drugs.  Those AIDS drugs only appeared
because AIDS research has built on the foundations of cancer research.  When I see my children, or think of your children or grandchildren, all at risk of cancer, I know that 50 years to more cancer cures is not good enough.  Spending fewer real dollars on cancer research each year, and letting good projects go unfunded, sends a clear message:  If you have cancer, or are one of the 80 million current Americans who will test positive for cancer, “Drop Dead”.  It tells top students:  find something to do other than cancer research.

        Take science to the limit.  Use the dedicated and highly trained researchers and good research opportunities we have available.  They could be a powerful engine of economic growth.  Inspire them, provide them with resources they need to achieve success, make them accountable-and set them free.

        If you vote against fully funding the war against cancer, then sign a pledge that if you or someone you love is diagnosed with cancer, you will pull no strings to get special privileges from the NCI or access to NCI experimental treatments.  Of course, pulling all the strings in the world is useless in any case:  the “magic bullets” do not exist and will not exist unless more research is supported.  See this as a special form of the Shays Accountability Act:  If you are willing to consign millions of people you represent to death, it is fair that you also suffer.