Washington, D.C. -  U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.), chairman of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, received the American Association for Cancer Research’s 2017 Distinguished Public Service Award. Blunt earned the award for his successful efforts to significantly increase funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.  
 
“When everyone in your family is healthy, you have lots of problems; when someone is sick, you only have one problem,” Blunt said. “I’ve been proud to lead efforts as chairman of the Labor/HHS appropriations subcommittee to increase resources for life-saving biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. Responsibly prioritizing resources for NIH and NIC will pave the way for new treatments and cures, reduce health care costs over the long term, and help maintain America’s competitive edge in innovation.”
 
Through his position as chairman of the Labor/HHS appropriations subcommittee, Blunt secured a $2 billion increase for NIH in the FY 2016 omnibus appropriations bill, which included a five percent increase for NCI. This was the first significant increase for NIH in over a decade.
 
In June 2016, Blunt secured another $2 billion increase for NIH in the bipartisan, committee-passed FY2017 Labor/HHS appropriations bill.
 
Blunt continued, “Maintaining a robust, sustained federal commitment to medical research will give hope to more families battling cancer and other diseases. It’s an incredible honor to receive this award, and I’ll continue working to establish a pattern of responsibly investing in groundbreaking medical research, especially in areas such as cancer research.”
 
At the award ceremony, Blunt discussed the subcommittee hearing he chaired last month on the importance of investing in medical research. Blunt highlighted the testimony of Dr. Timothy Eberlein of St. Louis’ Siteman Cancer Center, who talked about the success that the NIH-led Precision Medicine Initiative, which Blunt started in last year’s Labor/HHS bill, has had in allowing doctors to use specific genetic information to tailor treatments to patients and improve outcomes of care.
 
In addition to his efforts as Labor/HHS subcommittee chairman, Blunt recently cosponsored the Childhood Cancer Survivorship, Treatment, Access, and Research (STAR) Act. The STAR Act is a bipartisan, comprehensive bill that would expand opportunities for childhood cancer research, improve efforts to identify and track incidence of childhood cancer, and enhance the quality of life for childhood cancer survivors.