NEWS

National Cancer Institute Uses Breast Cancer Stamp Proceeds to Fund Research

Mike Miller

After 2 years of robust sales, the breast cancer semipostal stamp has raised more than $15 million, a large portion of which has already been designated for support of cancer research grants.



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The National Cancer Institute, through the National Institutes of Health, receives 70% of the net proceeds from the sale of the stamps, and 30% goes to the Department of Defense breast cancer research program. NCI awarded grants this summer to 32 scientists whose grant proposals were designed to challenge existing scientific paradigms and to develop new methodologies in breast cancer research that could provide the basis for future studies.

About 10% of the grants address issues of cancer and the environment, and about 30% deal directly with detection, diagnosis, and treatment, said Dan Gallahan, Ph.D., program director for NCI’s Division of Cancer Biology. The NCI grants support small studies in breast cancer research limited to funding of $75,000 per year in direct costs for a 2-year period. More than 400 applications for the new grants, officially called Insight Awards to Stamp Out Breast Cancer, were received by October 1999.

"There are more than a dozen critical areas of breast cancer research that will benefit from this innovative funding and help us address current scientific questions, as well as set up research opportunities for the next 5 to 10 years," said Richard D. Klausner, M.D., NCI director.

NCI expects to receive about $1 million more in proceeds from the sale of the breast cancer stamp by the end of 2000. This installment of funds will be used to award additional grant applications from those previously reviewed. Congress has recently renewed the 2-year act that made this program possible and will permit an additional 2-year sales period of the stamps.

This stamp was the first semipostal ever issued in the United States. It sells for 40 cents, allowing 7 cents per stamp to go toward research after administrative costs are deducted by the postal service. "Our initial printing of the stamp sold out," said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Mary Ann Simpson. She added that the USPS has sold about 215 million stamps over a 2-year period.



             
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