For cancer-care advocates, the top priority in New Jersey is legislation that would dedicate $10 million a year of state tax dollars to cancer research.
The bill, S773/A4579, would increase funding for the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research from its current $4 million and make it a non-lapsing funding source that’s exempt from the annual budget process. It would reallocate $6 million of annual tobacco tax revenue that is currently going into the state’s general fund.
“We have an opportunity in front of us to make an investment, with no net fiscal impact on the state’s revenues or expenditures, into cancer research at a time when the federal government is divesting in some respects,” said Quinton Law, New Jersey government relations director for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.
New Jersey is seeing a surge in requests for funding from research applicants who are losing federal aid, Law said. Efforts to dedicate cancer research funding have circulated for several years, but Law and Casey O’Neill, senior regional media advocacy manager for the action network, said momentum has increased in recent months. The bill cleared the Senate health committee in May and was referred to the budget committee for review. Advocates are pushing for a hearing in the Assembly health committee and are also in communication with the governor’s office on the issue.
Under the bill, the $10 million would be evenly divided between general cancer research and pediatric cancer research, with a focus on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes. The legislation also supports expanded access to clinical trials and high-quality care in historically underserved communities.
“We need to invest in the research that leads to new discoveries and remove the barriers that prevent patients from benefiting from those advances,” Law said.
Other priorities for the action network include expanding access to cancer screening, closing a loophole that allows smoking in Atlantic City casinos and enforcing insurance coverage for biomarker testing.
New Jersey’s casinos are the only places exempted from the state’s indoor smoking ban. Smokefree casinos are opening in New York and Pennsylvania, which could put Atlantic City at an economic disadvantage, O’Neill said.
“I respect the concern of our South Jersey legislators that are worried about Atlantic City’s economy,” she said. “But if we look at what the competition is doing, look at what our other states are doing, this is the direction that folks are going.”
For information about New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research, go to nj.gov/health/ces/njccr/.
