For nearly 30 years, NBCC has been a leader in supplying the education, tools and training that empowers breast cancer survivors and other advocates to make their own informed decisions and to take leadership roles in clinical, scientific, policy and legislative decision-making that affects breast cancer research, healthcare and public policy.
NBCC’s Advocate Leadership Summit is an annual gathering of breast cancer advocates from across the country and around the world. Participants attend sessions on the latest scientific research, training in effective advocacy strategies and presentations by respected researchers in the field, grassroots leaders from around the country and prominent public policy experts. The Advocate Leadership Summit is the premier breast cancer advocacy event that attracts women and men from the U.S and other countries. Attendees include breast cancer survivors, caregivers, patient advocates and many others who are affected by breast cancer.
From May 6-8, NBCC hosted our annual Advocate Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.
In a series of workshops, advocates listened, learned, and questioned prominent breast cancer researchers about a range of important topics, including racial disparities in breast cancer, antibody-drug conjugates, the history of the treatment of breast cancer, the history of the FDA and Accelerated Approval, why researchers can cure cancer in mice but not humans, uninformative clinical trials, and the uses and limitations of circulating tumor DNA.
Political workshops supplemented advocates’ political toolkits with topics including how the Affordable Care Act affected access to health care, understanding your political power as a constituent, and NBCC advocacy for the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program.
During the plenary sessions:
On May 9, advocates mobilized in a powerful Lobby Day on Capitol Hill, meeting with nearly 200 congressional offices to advocate for NBCC’s legislative priorities and secure lawmakers’ commitments to support the Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act, which currently has more than 130 bipartisan cosponsors in the House of Representatives.