[A] new report from the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) shows that while Vermont is making progress in its efforts to reduce the impact of cancer, it is also one of four states in the country that does not provide funding for the early detection of breast and cervical cancer.
ACS CAN’s “How Do You Measure Up?: A Progress Report on State Legislative Activity to Reduce Cancer Incidence and Mortality” is an annual report that compares the amount of funding and the quality of legislation directed toward cancer treatment and prevention as compared to the cancer society’s policy recommendations.
The report ranks states on a color-coded basis across a list of what the ACS CAN identifies as nine crucial areas of policy that can help fight cancer. The color rankings from best to worst are green, which shows that a state has adopted evidence-based policies and best practices; yellow, which indicates moderate movement toward the benchmark; and red, which shows where states are falling short, the release said.
Here are Vermont’s ratings according to the ACS CAN website:
Cigarette Tax Rates: Green.
Smoke-free Laws: Green.
Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program Funding: Yellow.
Medicaid Coverage of Tobacco Cessation Services: Green.
Indoor Tanning Device Restrictions: Green.
Increased Access to Medicaid: Green.
Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Funding: No Funding.
Access to Palliative Care: Red.
Pain Policy: Green.
According to the release, Vermont is one of only three states to meet six of the ACS’s nine policy recommendations.
“While 25 states and the District of Columbia are making progress in enacting and strengthening policies that fight cancer, unfortunately the remaining 25 states are falling short and no state meets seven or more benchmarks,” the release said.
The ACS identified tobacco prevention as an area in which they felt the state could use some stronger policy:
“This past legislative session, ACS CAN was able to fight back against grave cuts to Vermont’s Tobacco Control Program, but was not able to achieve a significant tobacco tax increase, even though tobacco use is still the number one leading cause of death. In 2016, ACS CAN will continue to defend the Tobacco Control Program, and work to include e-cigarettes in the state’s Clean Indoor Air laws, as well as advance obesity prevention and policies focused on better nutrition and physical activity,” the release stated.
The report also gave Vermont a “red” ranking for accessibility of palliative care, indicating little or no progress toward compliance with the ACS’s policy benchmarks.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses, focusing on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain and stress of a serious illness.
According to the report, Vermont’s biggest shortcoming in terms of cancer policy is the state’s lack of funded breast and cervical cancer early detection programs.
Though the Ladies First program, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides early detection screening for breast and cervical cancer, the lack of actual funding forces the program to function with a tight budget, according to the release.
“Unfortunately, because of the lack of funding for the Ladies First program, most eligible Vermont women do not know that the program exists,” said Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, director of government relations for ACS CAN in Vermont in the release.
“We know that this results in lower screening rates for mammograms and pap tests for uninsured and under-insured women, resulting in a greater risk of being diagnosed at a later, more advanced, stage of disease,”she said.
Allison Hicks, a cervical cancer survivor and Vermont’s state lead volunteer for ACS CAN, added that additional funding for the Ladies First program would ultimately save the state money and heartache in the long run.
“I want to impress upon you how costly this disease is, both in terms of dollars and in human suffering. My experience has committed me to education and prevention. No woman should have to endure what I did,” she said in the release.
Correction: A previous version of this story referred to a lack of federal funding, instead of state.