Bush Signs Cancer-Screening Bill to Help Poor Women

President George W. Bush today signed legislation to provide low-income women with free or subsidized mammograms, Pap tests and other screening for the early detection of breast and cervical cancer.

``Early detection makes treatment more effective, it gives hope to patients and it saves lives,'' Bush said at a White House signing ceremony. His own mother-in-law, Jenna Welch, was diagnosed with breast cancer at 78 ``and now nine years later, she's a cancer survivor,'' the president said.
The measure renews for five years the Public Health Service's early detection program for low-income, minority and uninsured women. Breast cancer is the second-most-often diagnosed cancer in the U.S. and the second-leading cause of death among women with cancer, according to the agency.

Elizabeth Edwards, 57, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, announced last month that her breast cancer, diagnosed in 2004, has spread to her bones. While it's treatable, it's incurable, her husband said.

``As there is no cure for breast cancer and no known way to prevent it, early detection is key to survival,'' Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a national grassroots network of breast cancer survivors, said when the Senate gave final approval to the measure on March 29.

Mammography screening of women older than 40 is estimated to prevent as much as 15 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the Public Health Service. The survival rate for breast cancer is more than 95 percent when it is detected early and still confined to the breast.

About 180,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

The legislation authorizes spending $225 million for the program in fiscal 2008, beginning Oct. 1, up from $202 million this year, the Congressional Budget Office said in a cost estimate. Total spending would be $1.25 billion over the five- year period ending in 2012.