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StumbleuponMcCain vows funding to fight cancer
Republican can't provide specifics, but tells Lance Armstrong in Columbus that he'd increase spending.
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Friday, July 25, 2008
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., claps as he arrives with Lance Armstrong at the LIVESTRONG Summit at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, Thursday, July 24, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)COLUMBUS — Republican John McCain joined fellow cancer survivor Lance Armstrong on Thursday night, July 24, at Ohio State University and promised that as president, he would "reverse" the trend of shrinking budgets for the National Cancer Institute.
But under questioning from the cycling star and former CNN broadcaster Paula Zahn, the U.S. senator from Arizona declined to say how much he would increase the institute's $4.8 billion budget.
He said federal spending must be brought under control first.
The presumptive presidential nominee blamed others in Congress, including Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, his Democratic opponent for president, for wasteful "pork barrel" earmarks he said he would work to eliminate as president.
"We'll take that money and make sure it goes to the right places," McCain said at the LIVESTRONG Summit, an anti-cancer event sponsored by the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Obama spokesman Isaac Baker said that as president, Obama would double federal spending for cancer research. While some earmarks are wasteful, others provided needed funding for community projects such as food kitchens, Baker said.
In an interview before the town hall, Dr. Michael Caligiuri, CEO of the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at OSU, said funding for the institute had been stuck at $4.8 billion for several years which, with inflation, meant a decrease.
To really fight the war on cancer that President Richard Nixon started in 1971, funding should be doubled over the next five years, Caligiuri said.
Obama, also invited to what was billed as a presidential town hall on cancer, was traveling overseas. Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, said the group would continue to press Obama for his views on fighting cancer.
McCain said his bouts with melanoma skin cancer had made him sensitive.
"When I see a woman with a child in the sun, I say, 'Get sunscreen on that child, please,' " he said.
He noted Obama's absence.
"You have billed this as a presidential town hall and I sincerely hope that the next president is here this evening," McCain said. "My opponent, of course, is traveling in Europe and tomorrow his tour takes him to France.
"In a scene Lance would recognize, a throng of adoring fans awaits Sen. Obama in France, and that's just the American press."
