- June 28, 2024
Senator Murray Tours Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Discusses Women’s Health Research Initiatives
Senator Murray: “Fred Hutch is on the cutting edge of ending cancer and improving cancer outcomes for women—it’s exciting to see Fred Hutch continue to play a critical role in President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, which I am going to keep working to support as we negotiate and write our government funding bills.”
***PHOTOS of yesterday’s event HERE***
Seattle, WA – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, toured the expansive new Fred Hutch Cancer Center clinic building in South Lake Union, and heard from doctors and scientists about advancements they are making in the field of women’s health. Since 1992, Fred Hutch has served as the coordinating center for the federally funded Women’s Health Initiative. Fred Hutch receives more funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) than any other independent research institute in the country and collecting three Nobel Prizes. Murray discussed the Women’s Health Research Initiative that President Biden launched last year and her ongoing work to support cancer research, menopause research, and more.
“It was great to see the impressive new treatment and lab facilities at Fred Hutch and talk with so many doctors and scientists who are at the cutting edge of eliminating cancer and making important discoveries in the field of women’s health,” said Senator Murray. “We’ve known for a long time that women’s health issues are under-researched and underinvested in—that’s true even when it comes to cancer. I’ve worked hard going back decades to boost funding for women’s health research, improve diversity in clinical trials, and push the federal government to prioritize women’s unique health needs. Fred Hutch is on the cutting edge of ending cancer and improving cancer outcomes for women—it’s exciting to see Fred Hutch continue to play a critical role in President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, which I am going to keep working to support as we negotiate and write our government funding bills.”
Fred Hutch is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the Pacific Northwest with 5,700 employees treating more than 40,000 patients each year. In addition to women’s health research, Fred Hutch was a leader in the international scientific community’s response to COVID-19: tracking and modeling the virus’s spread, developing diagnostic tests and treatments, learning how the virus interacts with the immune system, and coordinating large-scale vaccine trials for the COVID-19 Prevention Network.
Senator Murray has been a champion of improving and expanding access to women’s health care throughout her career. Senator Murray was the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which delivered a major federal investment to tackle the opioid crisis, strengthen our mental health care system, and boost NIH research, including to support then Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot—as the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, Murray specifically pushed to include policies that would require NIH to improve inclusion of diverse populations in research and to address gaps in knowledge around safe and effective therapies for pregnant and breastfeeding women. This year, as Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Murray secured $235.5 million in the FY2024 Labor-HHS appropriations bill for the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion to support breast cancer screening and diagnostic services to uninsured and underinsured women as well as $22.4 million for CDC’s cancer prevention, early detection and treatment, survivor support, and health equity activities within the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. In March 2023, Fred Hutch opened a new clinic building on the South Lake Union Campus, completing the largest construction project in the organization’s history. The six-story, 150,000 square-foot outpatient cancer treatment clinic features a patient-centered design, highly specialized treatment clinics and state-of-the-art procedure suites.
In May, Senator Murray introduced the Advancing Menopause Care and Mid-Life Women’s Health Act, comprehensive new bipartisan legislation that would be the most expansive effort so far to boost federal research on menopause and would—for the first time—coordinate the federal government’s existing programs related to menopause and mid-life women’s health. Murray’s bill would authorize $275 million over five years to expand federal research on menopause and strengthen health care workforce training, public awareness and education efforts, and public health promotion and prevention to better address menopause and mid-life women’s health issues. Murray is also a strong supporter of the SCREENS for Cancer Act that advanced through the Senate HELP Committee in December; the legislation would update and reauthorize the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program at $275 million through FY2028.
###
