The national President's Cancer Panel recently released its 2007-2008 annual report, Maximizing Our Nation's Investment in Cancer. The three recommendations of the report are:

1. Preventing and treating cancer must become a national priority.
2. All Americans must have timely access to needed health care and prevention measures.
3. The scourge of tobacco in America must end.

Information for the report was gathered at four roundtable meetings convened by the panel to identify what would yield the greatest reductions in cancer mortality and morbidity.

The President's Cancer Panel monitors the development and execution of the activities of the National Cancer Program, and reports directly to the President of the United States. Management and support services are provided by the Institute Review Office, Office of the Director, National Cancer Institute.

The panel is chaired by LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., M.D., F.A.C.S. Leffall is a professor of surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. Members of the panel are Lance Armstrong, founder of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and Margaret L. Kripke, Ph.D., special advisor to the provost at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The panel held a meeting at the Masonic Cancer Center two years ago when it was gathering research for its 2006-2007 annual report, Promoting Healthy Lifestyles.

Visit the President's Cancer Panel Web site to learn more and to read the annual reports.