Women and Lung Cancer Research and Preventive Services Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of my legislation, H.R. 2319, the Women and Lung Cancer Research and Preventive Services Act. This is a bipartisan, commonsense bill that takes on a serious and too often overlooked public health disparity.

The legislation would require the Secretary of HHS, in consultation with the Secretaries of Defense and Veterans Affairs, to conduct an interagency review of research on women and lung cancer, including access to preventive services.

It would also strengthen interagency coordination on public awareness efforts so more women have the information they need to understand their risk, seek early detection, and get care sooner. This matters because while smoking rates, fortunately, have declined in the United States and overall lung cancer rates have fallen, one troubling disparity remains. Women who have never smoked are still more likely to develop lung cancer than men who have never smoked. Research has continued to point to that gap, and it deserves far more attention than it gets today.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 120,000 women in the U.S. are expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2026. That is roughly 170 women every day who will die as a result of this. That is roughly one woman in 8\1/2\ minutes. Approximately 62,000 women will die each year from this disease.

As my colleague and good friend and partner in this, Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, mentioned, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States, so these numbers should get our attention.

This bill is about doing something constructive. It is about improving research, strengthening prevention, expanding awareness, and helping ensure women have better access to the services that can support earlier diagnosis and treatment.

Simply put, earlier detection saves lives. Better information saves lives, and more attention to this disparity can save lives.

Despite progress in prevention and treatment, declines in lung cancer incidence have continued to move faster for men than for women. The reality is the scientific community still does not know why, so this tells us, frankly, we have plenty of work to do.

Madam Speaker, I want to tell you something that is personal. I have been working on this issue for 8 years now, ever since our late colleague who passed away 2 years ago, Rick Nolan, asked me to take this up just in the back there in the Members Cloakroom as he was leaving the Congress in December of 2018. He had shared with me the struggles that at the time his daughter was going through. Rick's daughter, Katherine Benson, courageously battled stage IV non-small cell lung cancer until her passing in 2020 at only 46 years old. She courageously fought this awful form of cancer for about 5 years.

Rick's legacy and Katherine's legacy lives on in this fight and in the determination to spare other families the same heartbreak.

In addition to thanking my friend and colleague, Brian Fitzpatrick, whom I mentioned previously and who has been a great Republican partner and co-lead with me in this effort, I also thank Chairman Guthrie and Ranking Member Pallone for their support as well as all of the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

At the end of the day, this bill does something very simple and important. It focuses attention on a deadly disparity that has gone overlooked for far too long, and it pushes the Federal Government to respond with the seriousness this issue demands.

Madam Speaker, this is a thoughtful, bipartisan proposal that can save lives, and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2319.

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