A (temporary) win for cancer research
The president has signed legislation keeping the federal government funded through December 11 and temporarily blocking implementation of a harmful proposed OMB grants rule.
The bill (a Continuing Resolution, or CR) continues current Fiscal Year (FY26) funding levels while Congress works toward a final FY27 funding agreement. It also temporarily prevents political appointees from overriding scientific grant decisions - helping protect the independent, merit-based research process that children with cancer and their families depend on.
Learn more about the OMB rule and the risk of politicizing cancer research.
This is meaningful progress, and it reflects the power of advocates who spoke out. But it is only a temporary reprieve. Congress still must finalize FY27 investments in NIH, NCI, and dedicated childhood cancer research programs, and the OMB protections currently expire on December 11.
Federal investment in childhood and adolescent cancer research is critical to discovering new insights about the causes of cancer, finding new and more effective treatments, and determining their long-term impact on the quality of life. It is vital to ensuring that children diagnosed today can live long, productive lives free of cancer and the disabling late effects of the therapies that keep them alive. Continued, uninterrupted investment by the federal government in biomedical research is essential to the lives and well-being of children and adolescents with cancer and must remain a priority of the nation’s healthcare agenda.
We’ll continue urging lawmakers to provide strong, sustained funding for childhood cancer research and ensure that decisions about promising science are guided by expertise and scientific merit.
Your advocacy makes such a difference. We’ll need you with us as this work continues.
