S1157-119

What This Bill Does

The Women and Lung Cancer Research and Preventive Services Act would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to review federal lung-cancer research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment programs, activities and strategic plans, and update them as necessary and appropriate. The Secretary must consult the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs. The Senate-passed text seeks to address knowledge gaps for women and populations with few known risk factors, and improve screening rates for populations already recommended for screening by the United States Preventive Services Task Force. A report to four named congressional committees is due within two years of enactment.

Who Benefits and How

Women with lung cancer and populations with few known risk factors could benefit from better targeted research and program changes. People in screening-recommended populations could benefit from evidence-based efforts to improve screening participation. Researchers and health care professionals may gain clearer information about research gaps, environmental and genomic factors, biomarker testing and public-health strategies. These are intended downstream benefits, not guaranteed improvements in survival, a new insurance benefit or an entitlement to a screening test. Biomarker and imaging businesses receive no designated funding or purchasing preference.

Who Bears the Burden and How

HHS bears the main review, program-update and reporting responsibilities, with consultation work for the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Senate Appropriations Committee, House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Appropriations Committee receive research findings, implemented changes, additional recommendations and implementation barriers. The bill authorizes no specified appropriation, clinical trial, hospital reporting mandate or change to screening eligibility criteria. Program updates are conditioned on what the review finds necessary and appropriate.

Key Provisions

• Requires HHS to review and, as necessary and appropriate, update federal lung-cancer programs with Defense and VA consultation.
• Directs review of existing research, ongoing federally funded work and knowledge gaps, including environmental and genomic factors affecting women.
• Requires consideration of collaborative research, screening participation and advances such as biomarker testing, plus current and alternative evidence-based public-health strategies.
• Requires a two-year congressional report identifying findings, actual program changes, recommended additional changes and statutory or other barriers.