OK. I may offend a few with this reply, but this article is absolute crap.
What is not mentioned in the article, is that since 2001 (Bush's first budget) the funding for the NIH (parent of the NCI) has increased from $20.5 Billion to $28.5 Billion in 2006. The budget increased every year during this period The specific funding for the NCI has increased by about $1.1 Billion over this same timeframe, with each year seeing an increase until 2006.
The cut in the NCI budget of $36 Million is a miniscule amount when talking about a budget in the Billions of dollars. At the same time, funding for things like genetic research (which can potentially help cancer patients) bird-flu and other influenza pandemics is increasing. The total 2007 budget request for the NIH is $28.5 Billion.
To say that the administration cuts funding repeatedly is just factually untrue. We are now facing threats (not just terrorist) that were not taken seriously just a few years ago. The potential of some of the virulent influenza, SARS and bird flu strains to kill millions must be taken very seriously. I think the administration is making difficult decisions to re-allocate some funding to research in this area, while not breaking the budget.
In addition to the billions spent by the NCI, there is an additional $127.5 Million spent by the DOD on cancer research. If I really wanted to ruffle feathers, I could state truthfully, that during the Clinton administration, the DOD cancer research funding was cut from $210 Million to $25 Million. This is a larger cut than the cut proposed in the current budget, and is even larger because these were 1995 dollars.
Sources:
http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/KFa...20-%202006.pdf
Note: if you visit this page, remember to add 000 to the end of each dollar amount.
http://www.natlbcc.org/bin/index.asp...ptid=3&btnid=2