Posted on 06/28/2009 5:58:43 PM PDT by newbie2008
The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.
Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.
One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.
This is exactly what one might have predicted from a big government program of this sort, of course. On the other hand, big private entities get bureaucratized, too: “The private American Cancer Society follows a similarly cautious path. Last year, it awarded $124 million in new research grants, with some money coming from large donors but most from events like walkathons and memorial donations.”
Key bit: “There is no conversation that I have ever had about the grant system that doesn’t have an incredible sense of consensus that it is not working. That is a terrible wasted opportunity for the scientists, patients, the nation and the world.”
I personally do not believe that they don’t have a cure for cancer. There’s to much money in treating the sick.
Cancer is a hard nut to crack. That’s the biggest problem. Public and private efforts both are having a lot of trouble. Throwing money the wrong way certainly doesn’t help, though.
Who’s “they?”
I have a friend in a position of authority with ACS. Now and then he jokes about having a bad day when they find a cure.
Grants should be abolished and instead large rewards if someone or some group achieves a goal. The space prize comes to mind.
The goals would have to be specific i.e., 100 million if you devise a method that reduces prostrate cancer by 30% based upon the average rate between 2000 and 2005.
Would require peer review and independent confirmation by someone outside industry.
There, I have spoken
The medical industry.
Why would anyone who stands to gain untold fame and fortune by revealing a cure for cancer not do so just so they could protect the the salaries and employment of other people in the field? It doesn’t make sense. I’m speaking as someone who works in biomedical research. Who’s going to stop me or my collaborators from revealing what we find? There are plenty of people all over the planet who would be more than happy to pay us tons of money to betray our knowledge.
There will never be a cure for cancer, the common cold, arthritis, etc. because those diseases are a multi billion dollar cash cow for the pharmaceutical co’s. Just like the carburetors that get you 200 miles to the gallon.....you’ll never see’em.
Just playing devil’s Advocate but doesn’t a “cure for cancer” mean having to cure every type of cancer? Is it even possible that some miraculous cure would be able to cure all cancers.
I know we have some medical professionals here and I’d be interested to hear their opinions.
Ask yourself this “Why would anyone who stands to gain untold fame and fortune” work for this government? Work for this President?
The “medical field” represents a lot of different sources of funding. These include clinicians in private practice or working for private companies, clinicians employed in the public sector or for non-profits, public grant-funded researchers, private pharma and biotech researchers in companies big and small, government researchers at places like NIH, and researchers at non-profit foundations. An overwhelming majority of these people went into their professions long before Obama became president. I don’t think many consider themselves as “working for” Obama.
A universal cure for cancer is unlikely. Cancer is a family of diseases that just share the property of uncontrolled growth of mass of tissue or population of cells. Since there are something like 25,000 genes in humans, plus an untold number of regulatory elements, and a big subset of these are involved controlling cell growth, there are many different mechanisms by which cells can become malignant. Making it even harder is the fact that cancers tend to be genetically unstable, so that if you target one pathway for fixing, subpopulations of cells often readily appear that exhibit some *other* defect in growth regulation. Hence recurrence.
My statement about working for “this President” had to do with anyone. Why would they do it if there wasn’t something for them to gain that they couldn’t gain it in any other way.
My reasoning behind my original statement goes to herbal medications. Doctors don’t like herbs, either because they don’t understand them or they are cheaper. I take an herb that totally relieves my arthritis in my lower back and neck. May not get rid of it, but it gives me great comfort. My doctor wanted to give me pain pills....why? Because they cost more. My doctor and I have become great friends and now he just smiles when I talk about herbs and will recommend them to others.
Government money corrupts everything. It goes to what is currently popular (AIDS research) and what benefits powerful Congressmen. Whenever people start clamoring for more public funds to fight some disease, I cringe. If they only knew how useless and wasteful that is. There is a lot of bad science out there (NASA coming up with “facts” to support global warming) and crooks who know how to game the system. I’m afraid it’s too late now. People really believe government ought to be in the science business, and it will never be the same.
I think most doctors go into medicine because it pays well and it’s high-status, and that researchers go into research because it’s enjoyable and can be high-status, although not very often lucrative.
I’m not denying there’s conflict of interest in the field, but just saying that if a group of people found out a way to cure one or more cancers, then the information would in all likelihood very quickly get out.
A four year study by the Creighton Medical School in Nebraska prevented 77% of breast cancer by dosing the experimental group with only 2000 IU’s per day of vitamin D3.
There are at least 17 other forms of solid tumor cancers where D3 causes differentiation (resumption of a non-cancerous state).
There you go, a possible example of an effective cancer treatment not being suppressed by the medical industry.
IMO: the body of physicians has down everything in their individual power to remain ignorant of the benefits of D3
and interfere with the opportunities for patients to utilize D3 concurrent with other therapy options.
To me, this is like the Government Boondoggle of Idaho National Laboratories.
INEEL is supposed to be researching a way to dispose of nuclear waste safely. There are approx. 8000 US government employees with doctorate degrees etc., but most importantly 6+ figure salaries living in the desert of Idaho. who are charged by the US taxpayers to find the solution.
What, pray tell, is their interest in finding a solution? Would not 8000 highly educated people in Idaho be looking for jobs? Where could they find better pay and benes? Where is their incentive?
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