Congress: Support cancer research

When I was teaching out east over 20 years ago and told people I was from Iowa, they looked at me like they didn’t know what to say. So, I responded, “Hayden Fry,” and we could converse.

Today, Caitlin Clark is Iowa’s national claim to fame. Don some CC swag when you travel, and you are likely to make a new friend. Unfortunately, Iowa has another claim to national recognition, cancer. We have the second highest and fastest-growing rate of new cancers in the US according to the 2025 Cancer in Iowa report. And we are only one of two states with a rising rate of new cancers.

As far too many Iowans know, there is nothing quite like getting a cancer diagnosis for a loved one or yourself. It is usually the beginning of a long, arduous journey that people do not choose. It causes emotional and financial upheaval and stressors that are hard to imagine for those who have not traveled the journey.

But on this journey, there can be hope. Hope that if it cannot be cured, that it can (thanks to screening and ever evolving treatment protocols) at least be contained. People get to have this hope because of research that is being funded by the federal government at our public universities and hospitals, e.g.,the University of Iowa.

Federal budget, NIH, US Dept of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control and Prevention cuts coupled with holds/cancellations of grants, all erode opportunities for early for detection, treatment, and cures-- in other words, for hope. The chances of early diagnosis, removal/containment, and appropriate treatment protocol that allow one to go on living with a semblance of their pre-diagnosis life will become limited because of these cuts, holds and cancellations.

Therefore, I implore all our elected federal officials, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson, Zach Nunn and Randy Feenstra who have a proven track record of fighting for farm subsidies, to fight with equal vigor for federal funding for cancer research for Iowans. You have a proven track record of bailing out farmers with subsidies, now, how about bailing out the farmer’s families by fighting against federal funding cuts and workforce layoffs that are delaying research critical to Iowa’s fight against cancer.

Kathy Welsh grew up on a family farm in southeast Iowa. She is a cancer survivor; her brother is not.