The U.S. National Cancer Act is signed

Historical milestone — this page describes an event dated 1971. It is not current news, and the figures below are drawn from present-day statistics.

The bill and the day

Public Law 92-218, "The National Cancer Act of 1971," was approved on December 23, 1971. The statute text on govinfo shows it began life as Senate bill S. 1828, and that its stated aim was to amend the Public Health Service Act so as to strengthen the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

Congress set out its reasoning in the law itself. It found that the incidence of cancer was rising and that cancer was the major health concern of Americans at the time. NCI records that cancer had become the nation's second leading cause of death by 1970.

President Richard Nixon signed it. NCI notes he described the effort as a "war on cancer," and that the National Cancer Institute exists in its current form because of this act.

What powers it created

The law did four structural things, according to NCI.

It gave the NCI director broad authority to plan and run a National Cancer Program spanning NCI, other research institutes, and federal and non-federal programs.

It created the "professional judgement budget," often called the bypass budget. NCI's annual budget proposal goes straight from the NCI director to the President and Congress. It skips the approval by NIH and the department above it that every other NIH institute must go through.

It set up a National Cancer Advisory Board of 18 presidentially appointed members, mixing scientists with members of the public.

It set up a three-member President's Cancer Panel, which holds public hearings and reports annually to the President.

With the advisory board's input, the director could also create cancer centers and training programs, award contracts and grants, run cancer control work, and build an international cancer research data bank to collect and share research results.

The money

The act authorized $400 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1972, $500 million for the following year, and $600 million for the year after that. It also funded 15 new cancer research centers, local control programs, and the research data bank.

The Senate committee that reported the bill was frank about what money could and could not do. It wrote that there was consensus among researchers that they were "within striking distance" of understanding cancer cells. It also acknowledged that "breakthroughs in science are often serendipitous, and cannot be forced."

Fifty years of numbers

Two long-running SEER measures show what changed. Neither is attributable to this one law, but both describe the period it opened.

Five-year relative survival for cancer of any site, in the SEER 8 registry series, was 49.85% for cases diagnosed in 1975. By 2017 it was 72.66%. The current headline figure, covering cases diagnosed in 2016 through 2022, is 70.5%.

The US cancer death rate was 199.02 per 100,000 in 1975. For deaths in 2020 through 2024 it was 143.2 per 100,000, age-adjusted.

At the same time the burden did not shrink. The counts for a calendar year are American Cancer Society projections, which SEER republishes: 2,114,850 new US cancer cases in 2026 and 626,140 deaths. NCI's registry data, by contrast, show cancer of any site diagnosed most often in people aged 65 to 74, with a median age at diagnosis of 67. Our page on cancer statistics explains how to read figures like these.

Why "cure by 1976" did not happen

The framing of a war implied a single enemy and a deadline. Cancer is not one disease. NCI describes it as a group of diseases in which some of the body's cells grow uncontrollably and can spread, with more than 100 types defined by where they start and how the cells behave. Our page on what cancer is sets out that variety.

Advances have come unevenly as a result. Some cancers now have survival above 90%; others have barely moved. Screening exists for a handful of cancers and not for most. Much of what changed came from basic biology that nobody could have scheduled.

When to get checked

NCI's advice on symptoms is plain: if something lasts more than a couple of weeks and is not getting better, see a doctor. Cancer often causes no pain, so do not wait for pain. These are on NCI's list:

• A lump or firm feeling in the breast or under the arm, or nipple discharge
• Blood in the urine, or trouble or pain passing urine
• Blood in the stools, or a change in bowel habits
• A cough or hoarseness that does not go away
• Trouble swallowing, or indigestion that will not settle
• Severe fatigue that lasts, or fever or night sweats with no known cause
• A white or red patch on the tongue or in the mouth
• A sore that does not heal, a new mole, or a change in an existing one
• Jaundice, meaning yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes
• Swelling or lumps in the neck, underarm, abdomen, or groin
• Weight gain or loss with no known cause

NCI stresses that these symptoms are most often caused by illness, injury, benign growths, or other problems. Getting them looked at is how you find out which.

What this does not mean

• The act was promoted with hopes of a cure within a few years. That expectation was not met, and progress has been slow and uneven across different cancers.
• Money and structure were necessary but not sufficient. Many later advances came from basic discoveries that could not have been ordered on a timetable.
• The survival and mortality figures above cover the whole United States over fifty years. No single law, drug, or program can be credited with them.
• The 1975 and current survival figures come from different registry series and follow-up periods, so the gap between them is an indication of direction, not a precise measurement of gain.
• This is a summary of a historical law. It is not advice about anyone's own care.

Sources

• govinfo, Public Law 92-218, The National Cancer Act of 1971, 85 Stat. 778 — https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-85/pdf/STATUTE-85-Pg778.pdf
• NCI, National Cancer Act of 1971 — https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/overview/history/national-cancer-act-1971
• NCI, Symptoms of Cancer — https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/symptoms
• SEER Cancer Stat Facts, Cancer of Any Site — https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/all.html

How this article was prepared

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.

The National Cancer Information Foundation publishes Cancer Explained. This page is for learning. It is not medical advice and does not suggest a test or treatment.

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