2009-09-17

As Congress continues to work toward completion of fiscal year (FY) 2010 funding bills, the current versions of the Senate and House Defense Appropriations bills each contain funding to support blood cancer research.

The FY 2010 Senate Defense Appropriations bill, which was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 10 but has not yet been considered in the full Senate, includes funding for blood cancer research within the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (PRMRP). The Senate bill includes $50 million for the PRMRP to fund “medical research projects of clear scientific merit and direct relevance to military health” in 28 research areas, including blood cancer.

Although it does not contain funding for the PRMRP, the FY 2010 House Defense Appropriations bill, which was passed the House in July, provides $20 million for a Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (PRCRP) to fund research projects in eight research areas, including blood cancer.

Although the funding provided in the House and Senate bills falls short of the $25 million in dedicated blood cancer research that ASH has supported, the inclusion of blood cancer among the research areas available for funding in the PRMRP and the PRCRP will allow blood cancer researchers to compete for Department of Defense research dollars.

Following Senate passage of the Defense Appropriations bill, the differences between the House and Senate bills will need to be reconciled by congressional negotiators before any of the blood cancer research funding is finalized and made available for research grant applications.

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