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Cancer survivors, doctors and advocates in Pennsylvania say proposed cuts to federal funding for laboratories and research on cancer treatments and therapies could delay future breakthroughs.
Supporters and members of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network are now calling on Congress to preserve funding in the next fiscal year budget and reject the Trump administration’s proposal of slashing $2.7 billion from the National Cancer Institute.
“Because everybody is at risk of getting cancer,” said William Sherman, the network’s managing director of advocacy for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
William Sherman, managing director for government relations at the American Cancer Society, joined other researchers and cancer survivors at Independence Hall to call on U.S. Congress to protect cancer research funding, Aug. 26, 2025. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
The cancer institute cuts are part of the administration’s larger proposal to reduce funding for the National Institutes of Health by about 40%.
Pennsylvania scientists, companies and institutions received more than $2 billion from the NIH in fiscal year 2024, according to the American Cancer Society, including about $319 million from the cancer institute.
Efforts to find better and new treatments for cancer has, for the most part, been a universally supported endeavor, Sherman said, a nonpartisan issue.
Until now.
“I’ve never met an elected official who tells me no to my face,” Sherman said, referring to gathering support in Washington, D.C. for research efforts. “But we know by their voting behaviors that not everybody is with us right now. And they need to be.”