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Fran Visco

A lawyer treated for breast cancer in 1987 who built the National Breast Cancer Coalition and won the Department of Defense breast cancer programme, the first to put trained patient advocates on scientific review panels.

Fran Visco was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987 at 39 and became the founding president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition in 1991, which she still leads. In 1992 the coalition delivered 600,000 signatures to Washington and secured a $210 million appropriation for breast cancer research through the Department of Defense, creating the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, which have since funded billions of dollars of peer-reviewed research and which pioneered the inclusion of trained consumer advocates as voting members of scientific review panels. Her Project LEAD course has trained thousands of advocates in the science and statistics needed to sit at that table. She served on the National Cancer Advisory Board and on the President's Cancer Panel, and the coalition's Artemis Project sets deadlines for a preventive vaccine.

Role
Founding president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition
Specialisms
Breast cancer advocacyResearch policyPatient participation in peer review

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