Early Act Reauthorization of 2025

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4541, the EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2025.

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women, with 321,000 new cases and 42,000 projected deaths just this year alone.

While breast cancer is often thought of as affecting older women, younger women are often diagnosed too late, where treatment options are more limited and, frankly, outcomes are worse.

Approximately 16 percent of all new breast cancer cases occur in women under the age of 50. The importance of early detection simply cannot be overstated.

Women diagnosed at an early stage have survival rates exceeding 99 percent. However, that number can fall to 30 percent when breast cancer is detected at later stages. Despite these realities, younger women between the ages of 25 and 40 continue to face disproportionately high rates of aggressive breast cancers.

The EARLY Act has helped drive national progress in breast cancer awareness, education, and prevention. H.R. 4541 reauthorizes these critical efforts.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. DeGETTE. Wasserman Schultz), a fierce advocate and long-term fighter for early breast cancer detection.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

To my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick), I was proud to be elected in the same class as his late brother, Mike. He was a good and decent man, someone who always reached across the aisle. I was really fortunate to be able to serve with him and with the current Congressman Fitzpatrick. I thank him for continuing the fight against cancer with us.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in strong support of my bipartisan bill, the Breast Health Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young Act, or the EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2025.

First, I thank Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone for their strong support of this legislation, because one in eight American women, as you have heard, will get breast cancer, and 42,000 are expected to lose their life from it this year.

The earlier it is caught, the better our chances are to survive and beat it. When breast cancer is caught in its earliest stage, survival rates shoot up to 99 percent.

Trust me. I know catching it early saved my life.

Almost 18 years ago, when I was just 41 years old, I heard those four harrowing words: ``You have breast cancer.'' I can tell you, I remember feeling like I was being crushed by an anvil.

Like many Ashkenazi Jewish women, I found out I carry the BRCA2 gene mutation, making me far more likely to get breast cancer and ovarian cancer during my lifetime, and far more likely for recurrence.

After 15 months and many surgeries and tons of support from family and close friends, I was cancer-free. Finding it early saved my life, and now we have generational awareness of this genetic risk in my family.

Millions of young women need these same tools, so once I was cancer- free, I passed the original EARLY Act, which became law in 2010. Since it first became law, breast cancer cases have steadily risen by 1.4 percent annually for women under 50, twice the rate of older women, and by as much as 3.5 percent in women between 20 and 29.

The law created three CDC programs that helped young and high-risk women focus on breast cancer risks and address the reality of rising breast cancer rates in young women.

The Bring Your Brave campaign amplifies stories to raise awareness in young women 18 to 44 about unique risks, signs, and symptoms.

The Young Breast Cancer Survivors Program funds grants for nonprofits that provide support services and resources to boost patient survival and their quality of life.

It also ensures healthcare providers know the unique challenges that breast cancer poses to young and high-risk women. Unfortunately, too many young women and high-risk women are dismissed by healthcare providers thinking, ``Oh, what you have is just a cyst,'' or, ``Young women don't get breast cancer.''

The bottom line is reauthorizing the EARLY Act saves women's lives, and I am proud to team up with Representatives Miller-Meeks, Castor, Fitzpatrick, Dingell, and Harshbarger, and Senators Klobuchar and Crapo, to make sure those resources are out there for all of us.

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, early detection is our most powerful tool to beat cancer. It can be the difference between life and death, especially in combating breast cancer, especially for those with inherited mutations and women at higher risk, like Black women, for whom a deadlier form of breast cancer known as triple negative is more likely.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, the Senate to quickly pass it, and the President to make it law. Breast cancer diagnoses are on the rise in younger women, and we must meet this moment.
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