Senate bill would let residents donate to breast cancer research when renewing driver's licenses

When state Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward revealed this week that she’d been diagnosed with stage-one breast cancer late last year, she hoped she could use her position to help women both prevent and battle the disease.

Her colleagues helped take a step in that direction, unanimously passing a bill that would allow Pennsylvanians to donate $5 to the PA Breast Cancer Coalition’s Research Grants Initiative when they renew their driver’s licenses.

“The PA Breast Cancer Coalition has been instrumental in getting important legislation passed to provide coverage and screenings for women, most recently Act 52 of last year, which I sponsored, for insurers to cover MRIs and ultrasounds for women with dense breasts for the purposes of detecting cancer,” said Sen. Bob Mensch, the Montgomery County Republican who introduced the bill. “Most importantly, they have always been committed to contributing to the cause, giving over $4.5 million to breast cancer researchers in the Commonwealth. That’s where Senate Bill 445 comes in.”

On an average day in Pennsylvania, 37 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. The state is among the 15 highest in the nation for breast cancer incidence, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The coalition’s Research Grants Initiative was created in 1997 to fund researchers working to find new and better treatments.

“The only way to find a cure for breast cancer is by supporting research. Senate Bill 445 will serve as a pathway from Pennsylvania research labs to breast cancer patients all over the world,” said Pat Halpin-Murphy, president of PA Breast Cancer Coalition.

In 2020, the coalition awarded $200,000 through four $50,000 research grants to:

• Penn Medicine’s Dr. Lewis Chodosh, focused on obesity and breast cancer recurrence.

• Geisinger Clinic’s Dr. Anne Moon, focused on new therapies to stop cancer cell growth.

• UPMC’s Vera Donnenberg, focusing on developing a new type of anti-tumor cellular therapy for metastatic breast cancer.

• Temple University’s Richard Pomerantz, focusing on new treatments identifying breast cancer cells affected by the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations, which figured heavily into the treatment plan Ward is pursuing.

Mench said he’s proud to propose legislation that will allow residents to help “in the continuing research to foster innovation and development of an eventual cure.”

Click here to read the full text of Senate Bill 445, which now heads to the state House for a vote.

For more on the coalition, see PABreastCancer.org.