Blumenthal Urges Younger Adults To Get Cancer Screenings

HARTFORD, CT — Citing what they called an "unspeakable tragedy," health officials were joined by Sen. Richard Blumenthal this week to raise the alarm about increasing rates of cancer for younger Americans.

"We're here about, essentially, a phenomenon that is truly alarming, which is young people are afflicted increasingly at higher rates with cancer. And those rates are climbing, particularly for breast and colorectal cancer," said Blumenthal, a Democrat and Connecticut senior US Senator. "And most particularly, what is so really appalling is that the incidence of cancer among women, particularly in the 50 to 64 age range, is climbing faster than almost any other demographic."

The warnings stem from a report produced by the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute and published by the American Association for Cancer Research. The report found that from 2010 through 2019, the incidence of 14 different cancers increased for Americans under the age of 50. The cancers that saw the largest increase were female breast, colorectal, kidney, and uterine cancers.

Blumenthal referred to the Find it Early Act, of which he is a cosponsor. Introduced by US Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, the bill would require health insurance plans to cover additional screening technologies for breast cancer, such as 2D or 3D mammograms, breast ultrasounds, breast magnetic resonance imaging, or other technologies.

Currently, only mammograms are covered by typical health insurance, but these exams may fail to find breast cancer in its early stages, especially for women with dense breast tissue, a condition where the breasts are composed of a higher proportion of glandular and fibrous tissue than fatty tissue. Mammograms can struggle to tell the difference between dense tissue and tumors.

Another challenge is the Trump administration's cuts to medical research.

Dr. Peter Yu, physician-in-chief at the Hartford Healthcare Cancer Institute, said that the reason healthcare professionals know about the increase of early onset cancer is thanks to research conducted by the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), both of which have seen massive cuts by the Trump administration.

"Without adequate funding of the CDC, we would lose our early warning system," Yu said. "You wouldn't even know what was happening. until it hit us in the face. And all those research questions are funded by the NIH and the NCI, those questions about what is the best modality for screening and how to treat patients differently at a younger age. That comes out of federally funded research."

Yu said that he's spoken to colleagues in Atlanta, where the CDC is headquartered, and they've told him that whole departments are being closed down, compromising the medical industry's ability to see what's actually happening.

"So in addition to paying for what we know works now, in terms of the future, we really need to restore the federal funding for NIH, NCI, and CDC," Yu said.

Joseph Cappello shared the story of his wife, Nancy, who was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer in 2004. Despite monthly self-exams and yearly mammograms, her dense tissue prevented her cancer from being detected earlier. The two turned her diagnosis into advocacy, launching the nonprofit Are You Dense to advocate for greater access to enhanced breast cancer screenings for women with dense tissue.

Cappello said that screening technology has improved, in large part to his wife's efforts to help manufacture better products. She died in 2018, but he said he has continued the advocacy work, adding that without health insurance coverage for different detection technologies, women only had "half the pie" when it comes to detecting early-onset cancer.

"Not one woman should have to face a late-stage diagnosis due to improper screening," Cappello said. "It's just implausible. You just can't imagine that taking place. My wife was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Why late-stage? Because you couldn't find it, you could not find the cancer on a mammogram. You had to have an ultrasound at the time. And that would have made a difference in her life."

Some progress has already been made. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) issued a rule in 2023 that requires the disclosure of breast density in mammogram reports. However, Blumenthal said that more needs to be done.

"So to my colleagues, men and women, if you care about the women in your lives, let's pass legislation, but most immediately to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, let's just get it done, mandate insurance coverage," he said. "Women should not have to choose between putting food on the table, paying their mortgage, putting clothes on their kids, and having the kind of enhanced mammography or ultrasound that can actually detect cancer."