Advocates seek rise in funds for cancer screening

At 64, Iris Tolley has run a marathon on each continent, biked hundreds of miles with Lance Armstrong and regularly competes in triathlons.

Amazing as those feats are, they aren't her greatest accomplishment. Beating breast cancer is.

"It is my hope that you will attach my name and my face to a cancer-screening statistic and remember that breast-cancer screening helped to save my life," the 13-year cancer survivor said at a Thursday morning rally sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

Easily identifiable by the pink ribbons on their lapels, representatives from the organization flooded Capitol Hill to encourage their lawmakers to support increased funding for cancer screening.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, pledged his support for an additional $750,000 in ongoing funds to the Utah Department of Health's breast and cervical cancer early-detection program. The funding would more than double the number of women served in 2006, from 1,400 to a proposed 3,800 women.

The department estimates that 60,000 women are eligible for the program, which provides free cancer screening to uninsured, underinsured and low-income women between the ages of 40 and 49.

Ray, a member of the Health and Human Services Subappropriations Committee, said he was moved to act by his mother's battle with breast cancer.

"I saw her struggles and her hardships," Ray said. "These are our grandmothers, our mothers, our wives and our daughters who are battling this disease."

The American Cancer Society estimates that 920 new cases of breast cancer and 50 cervical-cancer cases will be diagnosed in Utah in 2007.

Two other lawmakers are sponsoring legislation focusing on preventing breast and cervical cancer in Utah.

HB358, sponsored by Rep. Karen Morgan, D-Cottonwood Heights, would give the health department another $1 million to establish a cervical-cancer immunization program and education campaign.

And Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, is sponsoring HB191, which requires health insurers to cover mammograms for women over the age of 40 or with an increased risk of breast cancer because of personal or family history of the disease.

When detected early, breast cancer has a 91 percent five-year survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society.