Please wait. Contacting image service... loading

Article text

Funding
for breast
cancer
research
set to rise
Funding for breast-cancer re
search is expected to rise significant
ly after a confidential meeting in
Canberra last week which included
the Minister for Health, Graham
Richardson.
Two of Australia's foremost
brcast-cancer scientists, Professor
Alan Coates of Sydney and Professor
John Forbes of Newcastle, talked at
length with Senator Richardson on
Tuesday, and are believed to have
persuaded him that the severity of
the disease merits much more re
search and a national control and
prevention program.
Six Australians die of breast can
cer every day and the incidence of
the disease has been growing steadily
for half a century. It is particularly
serious in Canberra.
Australia is a world leader in a
promising Tamoxifen research pro
gram which may prevent many cases
of breast cancer, but because scient
ists have been given $50,000 a year
for the program, it is likely to fall
behind schedule without extra
grants.
Senator Richardson said after last
week's meeting that there was an
opportunity now to adopt a "nation
al approach" to breast-cancer pre
vention and treatment.
He said that at the next meeting of
health ministers he would propose a
national campaign on breast cancer
which would inevitably involve ex
tra spending.
Funding for the program is expect
ed to be announced in the Federal
Budget in August.
In the Senate last Wednesday,
Senator Margaret Reid said that
more than five times as many people
had died of breast cancer in 1992, as
had died of AIDS.
"How is it that we spent $9.8 mil
lion on AIDS research last year and
only $1.5 million on breast cancer
research?" she asked Senator Rich
ardson.
Senator Richardson said an in
crease in medical research was vital
ly important and added, "We simply
do not spend enough on it."
Professor Coates, who is chairman
of the scientific committee of Aus
tralia's breast-cancer research-trial
program, said from Sydney yester
day that breast cancer would cost
Australia upwards of $5 billion in
medical and indirect costs in the
next decade.
"This most devastating and feared
disease deserves more than the cur
rent shoe-string approach," he said.
"We think the women of Australia
will be heartened to hear that Sena
tor Richardson is planning to act
Professor Coates said his group
wanted to include 3000 high-risk
women in the Tamoxifen trial over
three years, at a total cost of about $3
million including follow-up re
search.
Because of lack of money the trial
might have to be reduced, which
would be a tragedy for potential vic
tims and a pity because, at present,
Australia led the world in the field.
"The Tamoxifen program at my
centre in Sydney has had to be fund
ed entirely from what I can scrape
together from other sources," he
said.
"We do not want other health
areas to suffer, but we need to get our
priorities right.
"We must remove this scourge
from the lives of thousands of Aus
tralian women.
$