February Advocate Monthly Update
Dear METAvivor Advocates,
February has been an active month for METAvivor advocacy as we prepared for and launched our third annual GroundSwell Advocacy Event. Through this virtual initiative, advocates from all over the country are connecting with congressional offices to advance our legislative priorities and share with Capitol Hill how these priorities would improve the lives of patients living with MBC.
This update highlights recent federal developments, legislative progress, and ongoing efforts to strengthen METAvivor’s advocacy impact.
Federal Funding and Policy Landscape
On February 3, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, of 2026 an appropriations package funding negotiated by the House and Senate that included funding increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and Centers for Disease Control’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, and maintained funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The package also included $145 million for the Department of Defense (DOD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program Breast Cancer program, up from $130 million in Fiscal year (FY)25. This One Voice Against Cancer (OVAC) chart gives an overview of FY25 funding, funding requests from the President, both chambers, and METAvivor/OVAC, and the final FY26 appropriations.
At present, only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) remains without approved FY26 funding. Congress was unable to come to an agreement on DHS funding before their self-imposed February 13 deadline, resulting in a government shutdown of entities and programs withing that agency, including the Coast Guard, TSA, and Secret Service. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is at the center of the controversy, received robust funding in the One Big Beautiful Bill enacted at the beginning of the year, and is not impacted by the stalemate on DHS appropriations.
Now that most of the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills have been completed, Congress is preparing to move quickly on the FY27 process. Many offices have already released their internal processes for accepting appropriations requests, and the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are expected to announce their deadlines for member submissions soon. The President’s FY27 Budget request is expected to be released in late March or early April, which is later than is customary.
METAvivor has joined our coalition partners the AdHoc Group on Healthcare Funding and One Voice Against Cancer in unified appropriations requests for 2027. This solidarity with other stakeholders in the patient, provider, and research communities will amplify the voice of our advocates and maximize the impact of our shared funding request.
Legislative Engagement
GroundSwell Virtual Advocacy Event
METAvivor’s third annual GroundSwell Virtual Advocacy Event officially launched on Feburary 23 and will run through March 6. Over the past several weeks we promoted registration, identified State Captains, engaged advocates, and developed tools and resources to support successful meetings with Congressional offices.
To help advocates prepare, we hosted two advocacy training webinars and a dedicated training for State Captains and made recordings available for those unable to attend live. Preparation materials included, included fact sheets, draft meeting invitation emails and scripts, meting follow-up email templates, and a state-by-state spreadsheet identifying each advocates’ Members of Congress and email addresses for their respective healthcare staff in House and Senate offices. Advocates will be able to let us know how their meetings went and share feedback on offices that warrant follow-up through our post-meeting survey.
We look forward to the impact that these over 100 advocates will have at this pivotal time in the Congressional session, and to continuing to build on this virtual event that empowers advocates to meet with policy makers, even when they are unable to do so in person.
METAvivor Legislative Priorities
Since our last update, House the Metastatic Breast Cancer Access to Care Act (H.R. 2048) has gained 17 cosponsors, including 12 new Republicans. Co-sponsorship of the bill now sits at 214, 154 Democrats and 60 Republicans. The Senate companion bill, S. 3442 was introduced in December and has 5 co-sponsors (3 Republicans and 2 Democrats), up from 3 co-sponsors last month. The Cancer Drug Parity Act currently has 26 House co-sponsors (22 Democrats and 4 Republicans). We are continuing to pursue re-introduction of this bill in the Senate.
We are finalizing METAvivor’s 2026 legislative priorities document which will guide our advocacy efforts throughout the year.
Agency Engagement and SEER Strategy
This spring we are focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the National Cancer Institute’s SEER Cancer Registry, the ways it does and does not reflect MBC patients, and how we can support modernization and improvement. In mid-February, we had a productive meeting with the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR). We are looking forward to building on that dialogue and connecting with other key registry experts and stakeholders to develop a more detailed METAvivor policy ask and strategy around SEER.
Coalition Engagement
In addition to ongoing collaboration with One Voice Against Cancer and the Ad Hoc Group for Health Care Funding on appropriations asks, we are actively working with the Alliance for Breast Cancer Policy to elevate concerns related to SEER and cancer registries. Through ongoing conversations with Alliance leadership and members, we are collaborating on ways to highlight gaps in how metastatic disease is tracked and to build broader awareness of the need for improved data collection and transparency.
Communications, Grassroots, and Grasstops Engagement
Our team continues to evaluate and work to strengthen METAvivor’s advocacy infrastructure, with the goal of making effective engagement easy and for advocates, while also streamlining systems, processes, and data maintenance for METAvivor staff and leaders.
Following exploratory conversations in January with staff at other healthcare advocacy organizations about their programs and tools, METAvivor’s Advocacy Committee co-chairs joined a demonstration call with Voter Voice, a digital advocacy software company that is widely used by patient groups. Next steps include follow-up with the company on some outstanding questions about their system, and a review of METAvivor’s existing technology systems and tools to identify how the Voter Voice platform might interact with, compliment, or potentially replace them.
This work is part of a broader effort to ensure METAvivor has the right tools to communicate with and support its advocates, generate outreach to policy makers, and build robust grass- tops engagement.
Conferences and Events
Planning is underway for the Thriving Together: 2026 Conference on Metastatic Breast Cancer. We are discussing how the TFG team can support METAvivor’s tabling presence by highlighting ongoing advocacy efforts and helping connect conference attendees with opportunities to engage in policy and advocacy work.
Looking Ahead
In the weeks ahead, METAvivor will focus on supporting GroundSwell advocates and following up on their meetings, FY 27 appropriations requests, promoting Senate introduction of the Cancer Drug Parity Act, and continuing SEER-related strategy development.
Sincerely,
The METAvivor Advocacy Team