§285a–12 Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee

Summary

The Secretary must set up a group called the Interagency Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Coordinating Committee no later than 6 months after October 8, 2008. The group must share and coordinate information about breast cancer research and give advice to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies on how to improve research. It must create a plan to encourage team-based research on environmental and genetic causes of breast cancer that fills gaps, points out key questions and methods, and increases collaborative proposals and grants. The group must also summarize federal advances in breast cancer research related to diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. Within 2 years of starting, it must recommend changes to research priorities, ways to avoid duplicate work, how to involve patient and community groups, how to share research results, and how to build public–private research partnerships. When studying environmental and genetic factors, the group may include other cancers if that helps breast cancer research. The Committee must have voting members made up of up to 7 federal representatives (including CDC and NIH leaders and other agency heads) plus 12 additional voting members appointed by the Secretary: 6 outside scientists or health professionals from various regions and settings who know peer review, and 6 public members who represent people with breast cancer. The Secretary may add nonvoting members. The voting members pick a chair, subject to NIH Director approval. The Committee must meet at the chair’s call or when the NIH Director asks, but at least once a year. The Secretary must review whether the Committee is still needed in calendar year 2011 and then at least once every 2 years.