Barbara Boxer: “breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States today, and about 40,000 women will die…”

“breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States today, and about 40,000 women will die from the disease this year. It is important that we maintain funding in 2005 for the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Peer Reviewed Research Program. The program has funded groundbreaking research, including the discovery of the drug Herceptin, which prolongs the lives of women with a particularly aggressive type of advanced breast cancer. This drug could not have been developed without research that was funded in part by the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program. This is a program, I should add, in which 90 percent of the funds go directly to research. An overwhelming, bipartisan majority in the Senate supports this program every year. This year 66 Senators signed a letter to appropriators urging the continuation of the DOD Breast Cancer Peer Reviewed Research Program earmark at a funding level of $150 million for FY '05. Mr. President, as we proceed to conference on the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, I urge my colleagues to maintain this level of funding for breast cancer research.”