TownieDeac
words are futile devices
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2011
- Messages
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Here are a couple links for people to peruse:
HealthNewsReview
NY Times
Ars Technica
Cliffs:
Cancer is not one disease, and there's not going to be one cure for it.
We have recent history to tell us that fast injections of lots of money are a bad idea for basic research goals.
There are systemic problems in science, medicine, and technology that need to be addressed first.
My thoughts:
Scientists in particular are thrilled with this news. It sounds, on the surface, like a great idea. But cancer is more complex than we ever imagined, and the more we discover about it, the more we realize we don't know. Injecting a bunch of money in the short term accomplishes a few things: it allows us to train a lot more new scientists on the career path of PhDs > PostDocs > Associates AND it comfortably funds established labs. Both of these are, in essence bad. Unless there's a long term, sustainable plan to fund the NIH/NCI to cure cancer, this means that in a generation, we'll have a ton of trained scientists and no $ to fund them. As for funding existing labs, that too sounds good, but a little competition is a good thing here. Opening up the purse strings has traditionally meant relaxing standards for grants and outcomes.
We've already spent about $36BN on cancer. I'm not suggesting we haven't made a lot of progress, or that cancer research doesn't deserve more funding. But most of the basic research (yes, most) is not reproducible and therefore hard to build on. What should be a feedback loop between the clinic and the bench is mostly flowing in one direction. And we need to make insurance companies foot the bill for genetic testing of tumors - passing off these costs to consumers or taxpayers just doesn't make economic sense.
I work at an organization that funds (and fundraises for), promotes, and publishes cancer research. We work very closely with policymakers, scientists, and patients. Money is simultaneously the one thing keeping all this moving forward, and at the same time, a potentially dangerous force in the field if applied incorrectly.
HealthNewsReview
NY Times
Ars Technica
Cliffs:
Cancer is not one disease, and there's not going to be one cure for it.
We have recent history to tell us that fast injections of lots of money are a bad idea for basic research goals.
There are systemic problems in science, medicine, and technology that need to be addressed first.
My thoughts:
Scientists in particular are thrilled with this news. It sounds, on the surface, like a great idea. But cancer is more complex than we ever imagined, and the more we discover about it, the more we realize we don't know. Injecting a bunch of money in the short term accomplishes a few things: it allows us to train a lot more new scientists on the career path of PhDs > PostDocs > Associates AND it comfortably funds established labs. Both of these are, in essence bad. Unless there's a long term, sustainable plan to fund the NIH/NCI to cure cancer, this means that in a generation, we'll have a ton of trained scientists and no $ to fund them. As for funding existing labs, that too sounds good, but a little competition is a good thing here. Opening up the purse strings has traditionally meant relaxing standards for grants and outcomes.
We've already spent about $36BN on cancer. I'm not suggesting we haven't made a lot of progress, or that cancer research doesn't deserve more funding. But most of the basic research (yes, most) is not reproducible and therefore hard to build on. What should be a feedback loop between the clinic and the bench is mostly flowing in one direction. And we need to make insurance companies foot the bill for genetic testing of tumors - passing off these costs to consumers or taxpayers just doesn't make economic sense.
I work at an organization that funds (and fundraises for), promotes, and publishes cancer research. We work very closely with policymakers, scientists, and patients. Money is simultaneously the one thing keeping all this moving forward, and at the same time, a potentially dangerous force in the field if applied incorrectly.