Cancer death rates among children and teens dropped in the past two decades, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but that decline has stalled over the past 10 years among Black and Hispanic children. In the first decade, all races saw a similar decline in the cancer death rate. But between 2011 and 2021, the death rate dropped only slightly for Hispanic youth and increased for Black youth. In 2021, the death rate for White youth was 19%–20% lower than for Black and Hispanic youth, the CDC found.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO, a cancer surgeon who currently leads the National Cancer Institute, as the next director of the National Institutes of Health, overriding the objections of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the chair of the Senate health committee. The vote was 62 to 36, with Sanders voting no. 

More than double the number of healthcare workers reported harassment at work in 2022 than in 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said when sharing the results of a recent survey in an October 2023 Vital Signs report. Harassment may include threats, bullying, verbal abuse, or other actions from patients and coworkers that create a hostile work environment, all of which have important implications for health worker mental health, CDC said.

“Quality cancer care requires safety, efficacy, timeliness, and a patient-centered approach coordained by an interprofessional team with the integration of evidence-based practices to continuously improve care. Holistic, culturally sensitive, quality cancer care [also] requires equitable access to healthcare professionals via telehealth or in-person visits across specialties with an understanding of how cancer and cancer treatments affect wellness.”

The Cancer Moonshot plan identifies five priority areas, all of which artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to enhance. Two areas in particular lend themselves to AI: the call to "deliver the latest cancer innovations to patients and communities" and the aim of enhancing "the oncology model to place cancer patients at the center of decision-making."

In April 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the country’s first formal National Cancer Plan (NCP) under the Cancer Moonshot. It serves as a framework to guide the broad contributions across society in the United States’ work to “end cancer as we know it.” 

More than 70% of the world’s population—5.6 billion people—live in a country that has a formal best practice tobacco control policy, a fivefold increase since 2007, according to the World Health Organization. The organization published its findings from the Ninth Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic in Lancet Oncology.

“Advocacy is a pillar of nursing. Nurses instinctively advocate for their patients, in their workplaces, and in their communities, but legislative and political advocacy is no less important to advancing the profession and patient care.” —American Nurses Association 

Cancer survivors from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups who experience racism are more likely to report physical, mental, sleep, and activity issues during survivorship, researchers reported in study results published in Cancer. 

A geriatric nurse practitioner who served as a Navy helicopter pilot in the Persian Gulf through two deployments, U.S. Representative Jen Kiggans (R-VA) introduced new legislation that would allow more providers to use telehealth services, expanding access and reducing barriers for their patients.

People who live near nuclear weapons testing sites or work with uranium, U.S. Department of Energy employees, and firefighters, victims, and rescue and recovery workers from the September 11, 2001, attacks may be eligible for various government- or employer-funded compensation if they develop cancers because of their exposure to known related carcinogens. The funds can alleviate some of patients’ financial burden of cancer treatment and care and support families’ emotional well-being with a tangible reminder that the cancer is unrelated to any underlying inherited genetic disorder.

The COVID-19 pandemic crushed supply chains and caused the global trading system to falter. Although many industries have rebounded, pharma is still experiencing its effects. Drug shortages directly limit healthcare providers’ ability to provide patient-centered oncology care.

Cancer affects millions of people worldwide, and certain populations face a disproportionate burden of incidence, mortality, access to care, and representation in clinical trials. Oncology nurses can be a voice for their patients and an advocate for vulnerable individuals.

Recharting the trajectory of cancer in the United States requires involvement from everyone—government and private investors, researchers, clinicians, and people with cancer, their caregivers, and advocates, the National Cancer Institute said in April 2023 as it launched the National Cancer Plan. The plan supports the Cancer Moonshot initiative and “aligns broad societal engagement and focuses on critical needs to end cancer as we know it.”

Deanna Fournier, a cancer survivor, and Eli Diamond, MD, a neuro-oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, discussed Fournier’s cancer journey and the progress toward a better patient experience during a National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship lecture. Communicating with patients throughout their cancer journey can help healthcare providers, including oncology nurses, support patients and advocate for their unique needs.

From President Richard Nixon’s war on cancer in 1971 to President Joe Biden’s commitment to “ending cancer as we know it” in 2022, fighting the disease has been a bipartisan focus. Yet in that era, when cancer hit home, policymakers often hushed their own diagnoses. But times change, and many of today’s lawmakers are now boldly sharing their personal experiences with cancer as inspiration for action.

In the final days of 2022, as the world turned the calendar to celebrate a new year, the cancer advocacy community also celebrated: One of ONS’s longtime priority bills, the Lymphedema Treatment Act, achieved a landmark legislative win, passing the U.S. Senate as part of the fiscal year 2023 omnibus funding package. President Biden signed it into law on December 29, 2022, securing access to treatment supplies for patients with cancer-related lymphedema.

Midterm elections occurring halfway through a U.S. president’s first cycle are a referendum on that administration’s policies. Unable to take out their frustrations directly with the country’s chief executive, voters historically punish the president’s party at the ballot box. Still, politics is about people, and political scientists discourage attempts to quantify reactions and unexpected results. November 2022’s realignment of the federal power structure was an expected outcome.

The Lymphedema Treatment Act, a key piece of legislation for ONS’s health policy priorities, passed the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2022. The bill is now in the U.S. Senate for review along its journey to becoming law.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, awarded more than $5 million in September 2022 to 11 HRSA-funded community health centers to help underserved populations access cancer screenings and early detection services in partnership with National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers.

Since the late 1990s, U.S. Congress has made a concerted effort to increase federal funding for the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) biomedical research and clinical trials. Through rare but always bipartisan largess, legislative appropriators have seen the benefits of investing in the science for precision medicine; supporting genetic-grounded, patient-centered care; and changing the quality and longevity of life for millions of people, including those with cancer diagnoses.

Nurses’ valuable insight can bring a new perspective to every industry. Extreme dedication, unique experiences, and essential problem-solving skills help nurses to create an impact locally and nationally, and decision-makers have learned that these healthcare professionals have a plethora of valuable insight that must be heard in boardrooms across the country.

Advocacy can mean many things to nurses, and the meaning may even change depending on your position and perspective. The dictionary definition is “the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal,” but being an oncology nursing advocate goes far beyond that. It’s about having a vision for something and not settling for the status quo. It’s about striving for the best in whatever that cause may be—our patients, the profession, or health care in general.

Veterans exposed to toxic substances in service will have more access to cancer care and other medical assistance thanks to the recently signed Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act. The PACT Act passed with bipartisan effort by Congress in August 2022 and later signed into law.

Recognizing the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s historic moonshot speech, on September 12, 2022, President Joe Biden delivered an update on his relaunched Cancer Moonshot Initiative and progress made on its moonshot goal of “ending cancer as we know it.”

In a key step that would expand Medicare coverage for necessary lymphedema compression treatment items, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Lymphedema Treatment Act in July 2022, advancing the bill’s journey to becoming law.

For the past 244 years, the world has envied the Great American Experience. Civics 101 class equipped us with the U.S. checks and balances system’s elementary pillars:

• Government has three equal branches: executive (the president), legislative (the congress), and judiciary (the courts).
• When legislative laws are disputed, the judicial system interprets a law’s constitutionality.

As the most trusted professionals for 20 years in a row, nurses witness the needs of those in our care and are suited to translate them to legislatures, regulatory agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and insurers. We do that by speaking plainly about the impact that cancer has on patients and their families. As experts, our ideas and language can translate into practice changes to transform cancer care.

Created from $226.5 million in American Rescue Plan Funding, the Community Health Worker Training Program will increase the number of community health workers; mental health and substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery services; chronic disease care; and other important health services, according to an April 2022 press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

U.S. Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) announced that he would not seek another term in the U.S. Congress during his April 2022 House of Representatives floor remarks. In November 2021, Upton and his colleagues introduced the Cures 2.0 Act, which created the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (APRA-H) dedicated to finding and researching a cure for cancer.

Among the first set of nearly 100,000 whole genome sequences from participant partners in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Research Program, “about half come from people who self-identify with a racial or ethnic minority group,” Joshua Denny, MD, MS, All of Us chief executive officer, and Lawrence Tabak, DDS, PhD, NIH acting director, said. “That’s extremely important because, until now, over 90% of participants in large genomic studies were of European descent. This lack of diversity has had huge impacts—deepening health disparities and hindering scientific discovery from fully benefiting everyone.”

National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Norman Sharpless, MD, announced his decision to step down as the institute’s director in April 2022, a position he has held since 2017. According to NCI, the institute’s principal deputy director, Douglas R. Lowy, MD, will serve as acting director at the end of the month.

People who use electronic cigarettes have unique microbial communities in their mouths that more closely resembled those of smokers than nonsmokers, which may signal an increased risk of gum disease for those individuals, according to findings from research funded in part by the National Institute of Health’s (NIH’s) National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

More than $560 million in provider relief fund (PRF) phase four distribution payments reached more than 4,100 healthcare institutions across the United States in February 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The funding will be used to help healthcare institutions prevent, prepare for, and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, including maintaining operations at facilities and recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals during the workforce shortage.

Internationally recognized for expertise in health services research, the U.S. healthcare system, and health policy analysis, Robert Otto Valdez, PhD, MHSA, was appointed as director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in February 2022, where he leads the agency’s work in improving and promoting patient safety.

Climate change affects more than weather patterns or the environment; it also has a substantial impact on human health. Its contribution to the cancer burden includes increased levels of carcinogens, comorbidity factors, cancer incidence, and cancer mortality and reduced access to care.

Systemic racism persists throughout today’s society, presenting barriers to basic human rights and services, including quality health care for millions of people. Overcoming those disparities and achieving social justice require advocacy from all—but especially nurses.

Building support for the Cancer Moonshot reignition, President Joe Biden appointed temporary leaders to streamline the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP’s) agenda of creating the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Alondra Nelson, PhD, will serve as OSTP director and Francis Collins, MD, PhD, as science advisor to the president and co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology until permanent leaders are in place. Biden made the appointments in February 2022 after Eric Lander, his science advisor who also served as OSTP director, announced his resignation from the role.

Provider Relief Fund Phase 4 payments distributed approximately $9 billion to more than 69,000 healthcare institutions that have experienced revenue losses and expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in December 2021.

Consumers will more easily find affordable healthcare coverage in 2023, thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s December 2021 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters 2023 Proposed Rule, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The rule also improves shopping for healthcare coverage, establishes rules to ensure people have access to care, and advances health equity for consumers purchasing Marketplace coverage.

On December 23, 1971, the National Cancer Act was signed into law by Former President Richard Nixon, granting authority to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) director to develop a national cancer program. In December 2021, First Lady Jill Biden celebrated the legislation’s 50th anniversary in an NCI video, in which she recognized the importance of the act, cancer advocacy, and the disease’s personal impact on her family.

Before clinical trials proved otherwise, physicians hailed cigarettes’ therapeutic benefits in black-and-white television commercials and old-time newspaper ads, such as easing tension and enhancing cognition. But as a popular cigarette slogan from the 1970s suggests, we’ve “come a long way, baby!” In the 1950s, researchers began publishing study findings implicating smoking as a cause of lung cancer. Today, the evidence is conclusive: nicotine is addictive and damaging to a person’s health.

Citing his extensive medical background and leadership experience, in November 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Robert Califf, MD, MACC, adjunct professor of medicine, professor of cardiology, and member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC, as U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner. Califf will assume the role once confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Out-of-state RNs can now practice in Maryland and certain qualified nursing students are fast tracking graduation, according to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s (R-MD) September 2021 announcements. The Old Line State’s steps will help increase the workforce and curtail the nursing shortage.

Serving on the team that launched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative was just one of the many achievements in Francis Collins’, MD, PhD, 12-year tenure as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collins announced in October 2021 that he is stepping down from his role by the end of 2021 after serving as NIH director for three presidential appointments, during which he advocated for increasing NIH’s research budget, learning more about the human genome, and developing treatments tailored to unique genetics.

Biomedical research is what transforms medicine. Oncology nurses see the evidence of that daily, from discoveries like immunotherapy that have revolutionized cancer treatment to novel nursing approaches to managing symptoms and adverse events. And thanks to the studies that brought a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine to market in record-breaking time, the world understands research like never before, too.

ONS member Christopher R. Friese, PhD, RN, AOCN^®, FAAN, oncology nurse researcher and professor at the School of Nursing in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was named one of seven researchers and clinicians that President Joe Biden appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board on September 15, 2021.

To achieve value-based, person-centered care, the U.S. healthcare system must promote sustainability and readiness to prepare for future public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) said. In August 2021, CMS announced that the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System and Long Term Care Hospital Prospective Payment System final rule will take effect on October 1, 2021, in support of that work.

Nursing has long been associated with healing hands. Laying hands on patients’ bodies is personal and intimate, providing comfort, soothing reassurance, strength, and hope. It builds a sacred trust that engenders care. When that foundational element of nursing was removed to follow social distancing protocols during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, nurses found a new avenue to connect with their patients—through the use of telehealth.

In its first year, new presidential administrations release a skinny budget that contains more topline items rather than deep dives into each agency and subdivision. Following suit, in April 2021 the Biden-Harris administration released its request for discretionary funding with limited definition, but it was enough to foreshadow the fiscal year (FY) 2022 funding cycle.