May 14, 2002
Dana-Farber physician participates in oval office signing of Blood Cancer Act
Geraldine Ferraro; Kenneth Anderson, MD; Kathy Guisti, president and founder of the Multiple Myeloma Foundation; and President Bush following the signing.
President George W. Bush signed into law today the Hematological Cancer Research Investment and Education Act of 2001. The law provides $250 million in federal funding for blood cancer research, information and education. Among the small group attending the Oval Office signing was Kenneth Anderson, MD, director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Last July Anderson and former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, a patient of Anderson's, testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on the need for new better treatments for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer in which more than 11,000 Americans die from each year. Anderson was active in explaining to legislators the need for the bill's passage.
The Act builds on the Joe Moakley Research Excellence Program and the Geraldine Ferraro Cancer Education Program and was sponsored by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Tex) and Representative Phil Crane (R-IL). The Moakley program directs and authorizes funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to expand blood cancer research programs. The Ferraro Cancer Education Program directs the Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with the NIH, to provide information and public education programs on blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
