Cease-fire on the War on Cancer?

[LongTomH]

The news that Senator Ted Kennedy has brain cancer has brought the subject of cancer treatment and cancer research back into the public spotlight. What we're seeing isn't pretty; federally funded research has been cut to the bone.

Even the Main$tream Media is finally getting it. CBS News is running a series titled: Are We Retreating in the War on Cancer?

(CBS) Nearly half of all men and more than one-third of all women in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. And yet, since 2004, federal funding for research into the four most common kinds of cancer - lung, colon, breast and prostate - has been cut by $102 million. Is enough is being done to stop this killer? This is the first in a series, "The War on Cancer: Where We Stand."

They are America's foot-soldiers in the war on cancer - young scientists whose research may someday lead to better treatments and even cures.

But experts worry this small elite army is leaving the field in droves because government funding, which once allowed cancer research to flourish, is now drying up.

Until 2003, funding for cancer research was being increased; since 2003 it has gone downhill. Only 1 in 10 cancer research proposals are funded. The government-funded basic research is where new approaches to treating cancer may come. The big-pharma funded research is focused on new drugs, getting those drugs approved by the FDA, and of course, marketing them.

This is personal to me, as it must be to most of you. I've lost too many of the people I love to cancer: The woman I love, my Dad, a favorite uncle. All lives cut short by different forms of cancer.

I'm absolutely infuriated that curing cancer and saving lives is taking a backseat to spending on new and better ways of dealing death. :grr:

This really should be an issue in the 2008 campaign.

[TooBigaTent]

1. As a cancer researcher, I can personally attest to this fact. But, you cannot pay

our military to destroy other nations and their populations AND fight disease at the same time. There have to be priorities, and the junta has theirs.

With most of the research dollars going to those bastions of liberal indoctrination (universities), it is obviously preferable to funnel that money to MIC cronies.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Obama addressed this at a town hall meeting I attended.

He mentioned doubling NIH funding, and increasing the funding every year as it used to be back before the Bush administration.

[pitohui]

3. a couple of comments about why cancer takes a backseat

public funds were turning into a subsidy for big pharma, and the reality is that with my "po folks" insurance (and many in the u.s.a have NO insurance) then all the new cures and all the new drugs wouldn't go to us anyway

so why should i support cancer research and cures that will only be for the rich people, when the rich people have a higher life expectancy than i do ALREADY?

i no longer donate to disease research for that reason and i doubt i'm the only one

i'm tired of the susan komen threatening me with breast cancer if i don't wear a pink ribbon when i don't see an ounce of proof that research is going into the causes of cancer that will impact industry (and we all know that most breast cancer occurs in women with NO risk factor, that the cause is pollutants put in our environment and who profits from this? not me, it's big industry that profits) -- it's all going to social control such as blaming women for having a glass of wine with lunch or not having kids and saying that's the cause of the breast cancer, such "research" is better not done at all when it's obviously being done to provide "scientific" evidence to punish and frighten women for making modern choices in their lives

you get to a point where cancer researchers are not stepping up to the plate and saying, look we have to cut down on certain pollutants, we know the cause of these diseases and these industries need to compensate the families who are injured, killed, and financially destroyed by cancer

instead we see a situation where big medicine and big pharma profit from "cures" that don't cure but instead drag out my suffering and bankrupt my family

we definitely do need more research but we don't need "more of the same" research -- a medicine that costs $10,000 an application is of zero value to me since i can't justify destroying my family by taking the medicine, after all, my healthy spouse would need something to live on in his old age

we need research that gets serious about identifying the culprits and causes, no more "blame the victim" crap, we ALL eat food and drink water, it's time to get serious about going after the polluters who have made our food and water dangerous to consume over decades of a human life

we are killing the frogs, we are killing ourselves, and more study and research isn't going to change that UNLESS we also see some courage from researchers

but all i see is researchers wanting to promote some big new tech and some big new drug, things i can't afford and won't help me avoid cancer or get cured

so people are bitter, you know?

if every penny spent in iraq went instead to big pharma, it still wouldn't save my life until there is a structural change in the system, such as universal health care, cap on profits from procedures and drugs, and so on

why should someone else be able to charge me more money than i have been able to earn in my entire working life because i have cancer?

we don't just need research, we need a new government and we need new laws, we need an entire overhaul and i seriously doubt we're going to get it

throwing millions more of taxpayer dollar around so a rich person can have access to medicine i can't afford, what's the point?

i've known two people who survived hodgkin's disease, only to become suicidal, because of the destruction of their finances, if the cure takes everything you have earned and everything you can ever earn and cheats your spouse and child of having any future, then what is the point of survival?

i would support an entire overhaul of the system including universal health care without question (yes, even for smokers and fat people and ladies who once in a while have a glass of wine with lunch!) but i don't support simply throwing more money in the direction of researchers who plan to hit it big with some new chemical and enrich themselves at my expense of my entire family's ability to have any quality of life

there is more to life than just being alive, i am not just a tube that eats, and if the cure means that i can never have a future or provide my family with a future, why bother?