The Prevent Cancer Foundation’s 2026 Gala celebrated Puerto Rico and honored Representatives Steve Scalise and Richard Neal for their bipartisan cooperation on critical health issues and health care access. As you can see in the video above, it was a joyful celebration of La Isla del Encanto. It’s also a serious event that not only recognizes the accomplishments of the Island but also makes it possible to continue battling cancer in Puerto Rico.
The Foundation raised more than $2,000,000 to be used for early detection and cancer prevention work on the Island. They intent to invest in the following kinds of projects:
- educational campaigns and materials
- advocacy work for health care services and access
- promising new research
- partnerships with organizations doing on-the-ground-work in their communities.
Early detection and prevention
When detected and treated early, many forms of cancer have very high survival rates. If cancers have already advanced before they are identified and treated, though, the numbers look very different. For example, women whose breast cancers are found early, which they are still localized, have a 100% 5-year survival rate in the United States. If the cancers are not found until they have spread, the survival rate is just 33%. The rates for prostate cancer are very similar. Colon cancer has a 91% survival rate with early detection but just 13% with later discovery.
There are reliable, routine tests for all these types of cancer. Yet prostate cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among men in Puerto Rico. A study of elderly men on the Island found that poor health care access led to higher rates of mortality. Another study, looking at colorectal cancer, the type of cancer with the highest mortality rate on the Island, showed that Puerto Rico has the lowest survival rate of Hispanic individuals in the United States. Breast cancer outcomes are also worse in Puerto Rico than in the states, even though the number of new cases is lower.
In each of these examples — and there are many more — a disease that can be treated successfully with early detection takes far more lives in Puerto Rico than in the states. Specific studies point to lack of access to routine screening and to early treatment.
When it comes to prevention, Puerto Rico is also at a disadvantage. Â While no cancer is entirely preventable, most cancer risk varies a great deal depending on the environment and life conditions of the individual. Prevention depends on whether people can consistently access primary care, afford medications and vaccination, obtain healthy food, avoid tobacco, safely exercise, and receive health information and services before disease develops.
Puerto Rico’s most important disadvantage is that federal health-program rules do not treat it like a state. Its Medicaid program is federally capped rather than open-ended, which has historically meant constrained funding, lower provider payment, more limited benefits or eligibility, and added difficulty sustaining preventive primary care for low-income residents. Those constraints can affect vaccination, tobacco-cessation help, obesity counseling, nutrition services, cancer-risk assessment, and follow-up—not only cancer treatment.
Spearheading cancer treatment
Amgen, one of the sponsor partners of the Gala, has a large manufacturing hub in Juncos, Puerto Rico, where the company creates pharmaceuticals for cancer treatment. The facility was built 30 years ago, and Amgen has invested more than one billion dollars in the Puerto Rico division. Amgen executive Esteban Santos spoke at the Gala.
Other cancer treatments are researched and produced in Puerto Rico by Bristol Myers Squibb, PharmaEssentia, and CytoImmune Therapeutics. Additional oncology-related products are also part of the Island’s extensive pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
Beyond the essential role of the territory in the manufacturing part of cancer treatment, it is also important to fund research and healthcare on the Island. Puerto Rico has an abundance of universities and individuals with the skills and expertise to do this sort of work, but many leave the Island to live in a state. Since everyone born in Puerto Rico is a natural-born U.S. citizen, it is easy to gain the benefits of statehood by taking a plane to the mainland.
Keeping talent close to home
When there are more opportunities for talented people who have worked hard to gain the skills for high-tech jobs, fewer will feel that they have no choice but to leave Puerto Rico.
When access to health care on the Island is equal to that in the states, fewer people will feel forced to leave Puerto Rico in order to care for their families.
Statehood is the solution. Contact your legislators now and make sure they know that statehood is the answer for Puerto Rico.
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