Federal money for research into early diagnosis, treatment and cures is plummeting.

The war in Iraq is leaving less money for cancer research and could result in a slowdown in the progress made in finding cures, a recent article says.

“Many scientists believe the cost of the Iraq war is largely responsible for a drop in real dollars for cancer research, and private organizations, though critical, are a pale substitute for the power of the federal government,” Robert Weiner, former White House aide, and Patricia Berg, director of the George Washington University Medical Center breast cancer lab, write in the article “Too Few Funds to Fight Cancer in U.S,” posted on the San Diego Union-Tribune Web site.  

Due to inflation, the National Institutes of Health has experienced a 2 percent fall in its budget in real dollars every year for the last seven years, the article says. The National Cancer Institute now funds fewer than 10 percent of requested research projects, down from 25 percent a decade ago.

Ellen Sigal, chairwoman of Friends of Cancer Research in Arlington, VA, and the chair of a forum at the American Association for Cancer Research on alternative funding mechanisms, cites “deficit and war” as reasons for the drop in federal money.

The authors said that it is tragic that private volunteer organizations scramble to pick up the pieces for the federal government, which is primarily responsible for driving scientists closer to curing the disease.