| Breast cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality for women in the United States. It is estimated that every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and every twelve minutes a woman dies from this disease. Research has identified three potential causes for breast cancer: genetics, lifestyle choices and the environment. Genetics and lifestyle choices contribute to less than 30% of breast cancer cases; the remaining 70% of all cases can be linked to the environment and environmental carcinogens. Environmental carcinogens can be found in cosmetics, household cleaning materials, and as by products of pollution, such as PCBs and organochlorides. Elimination of environmental carcinogens would lead to prevention. Despite this fact, research funding policies tend to neglect the role of environmental carcinogens which have been linked to breast cancer and instead fund research for new screening and treatment methods.; In order to determine how and why research funding policies for breast cancer are formulated and if in fact these policies systematically exclude funding for the role of environmental carcinogens, a thorough analysis of the research funding policies had to be conducted. This study applied theoretical arguments from sociology, elaborated on policy theories and utilized the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and Congressional hearings to evaluate how and why research funding priorities for breast cancer are determined. The results of this study revealed that: the discursive coalitions advocating for research into the environmental causes of breast cancer are marginalized during the Congressional hearings; due to this marginalization, research funding is limited for the environmental coalition; and that the majority of hearing testimony is impacted by the economic interests of the presenter. Since the environmental coalition does not have equal participation during the Congressional hearing process, it also does not receive equal funding for research activities. |
