Sheldon Whitehouse’s cancer research bill passes Congress

It only took six years

By Will Collette

Just before Congress recessed for its Christmas break, it passed the final version of the defense authorization bill, which contained within it the Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act.

RI Senator Sheldon Whitehouse sponsored the Senate version of the bill, which provides funding and new protocols for dealing with the types of cancers that are almost always a death sentence, such as pancreatic cancer.

It took six years and serves as a case study for the general dysfunction of Congress and how difficult it is to pass a free-standing bill, no matter how meritorious.

Only by tucking the bill into one that even the craziest right-wing Republicans would vote to approve could this measure be passed, and Defense spending was just the ticket.

The legislation now goes to President Barack Obama, who will sign it into law. Senator Whitehouse commented, “I hope this legislation will help to secure a brighter future for patients suffering from recalcitrant cancers like lung cancer and pancreatic cancer."

Whitehouse lost his own mother to pancreatic cancer. 

Aside from the potential future benefits to cancer sufferers in our community, Charlestown residents should consider what it took to get this bill passed the next time they read alarm bulletins from the Charlestown Citizens Alliance about the so-called Carcieri Fix legislation.

This is Senate Bill 676, a free-standing bill that would reverse the 2009 US Supreme Court decision, Carcieri v. Salazar. That court decision started with a lawsuit by Charlestown against the US Interior Department to block the placement of 32 acres of tribal land into federal trust so the tribe could build senior citizens’ housing.

S. 676 died when the besotted 113th Congress adjourned. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) has retired.

The CCA has put out repeated alarms that a Carcieri fix would automatically mean the Narragansetts would start building a casino in Charlestown, since in CCA’s view, any actions by the tribe are simply stalking horses for a casino.

In addition to being totally illogical, if not total b.s., the CCA’s alarms never mention how incredibly hard it is to get anything through Congress. The Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act is a great case in point.