As someone who lives with and takes care of a cancer patient, I'm really frustrated with how little effort has been devoted to cancer research in such a long period of time, taking into account that it's been several decades of misery now for millions of people--and a lot more to come; that's for sure.
Besides governments allocating less funding to research, prevention and treatment--for cancer as well as other grave ailments--than they could, what especially irks me is this: negligent practices carried out by big corporations to which authorities have always turned a blind eye. The sheer amount of unregulated, harmful practices that has come to define our current lifestyle is abominable. Radiation, pollution, carcinogenic and generally unsafe food, hygiene products, food and liquid containers... All factors whose pervasiveness correlates with cancer cases skyrocketing.
We should all be willing to reflect upon what we're doing to our personal and collective health, and if our lifestyles are actually sustainable or do require to be reformed.
There's a LOT of effort going into cancer research. It's just cancer is not one thing. It's not like HIV. There are many many different types of cancers, and they are currently treated and diagnosed differently. They are expressed differently. Many cancers are extremely treatable now thanks to research (testicular cancer >98% survival rate), while others are not at all (<1% for pancreatic).
Really sorry to hear what you're going through. Cancer is a terrible terrible thing for the sufferer and their carers alike.
I do however disagree with some points made; as a researcher who doesn't work in cancer, I often see it as a very well funded area of science relative to almost all others (in Australia at least, and I suspect the rest of the Western world). Obviously there are differences in funding for various cancer types, which is caused by a range of factors. Research funding across most areas could be improved IMO.
I'd add that on average, the biggest risk factor for cancer is age - we live longer than in the past, thus we're more likely to get cancer. There are other risk factors of course, but apart from things like smoking, being irradiated or infected with certain viruses, they likely pale in comparison to simply growing old and collecting a long list of mutations in various cells over time, with awful consequences for the unlucky.
I used to work in Cancer research. Saying “I want to cure cancer” is analogous to saying “I want to cure viruses,” not “I want to cure HIV”.
Having said that, progress has been made for certain types of cancer, just not as fast as anyone would like.
I agree 100% about prioritizing prevention. At the very least, governments could stop subsidizing/mandating the production and use of carcinogens!
For example, California used to mandate extremely high levels of known-carcinogenic flame retardants for furniture, and the result was new forms of cancer that only occur in California. (This was fixed a few years ago, but used furniture, or anything upholstered is crazy-risky.)
It took years for the state senate to act, despite strong scientific evidence. The flame retardant industry had the strongest lobby, but everyone else, from Ikea (and, separately, their factory workers), to fire fighters, to environmental groups were for lifting the mandate.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of analogous stories are playing out today.
Just yesterday, I read that general mills (and also nature valley) use roundup as a pre-harvest desiccant to kill and dry out oats before harvest, leading to ridiculously high levels of glyphosate in kids cereal (like Cheerios) and “healthy” granola bars.
Best practice for non-organic farming is to apply herbicides well before harvest so they can break down / wash off the final product. Spraying during harvest should be criminalized!
There has been a TON of research into cancer. Pretty much every big Pharma company spends a lot of money on it and if you look where VC money is going for start-ups, over half is in the oncology space.
If anything, some question if that should be dialed back and spent in other disease areas.
> The sheer amount of unregulated, harmful practices that has come to define our current lifestyle is abominable.
As someone who is tired of hectic urban life, I certainly concur with the above statement. It is an extremely disturbing trend. I know I don’t want to turn a blind eye to what is happening, but at the same time I don’t know what else I can do except being stoic.
>I know I don’t want to turn a blind eye to what is happening, but at the same time I don’t know what else I can do except being stoic.
I've been thinking about that for a long time, and still do. I reckon the best option is having a mindful and critical attitude while doing our best to come up with alternatives. Persevering in having a constructive mindset always goes a long way.
> I'm really frustrated with how little effort has been devoted to cancer research in such a long period of time
It may seem slow but for a while now most of research budgets and acquisitions are for oncology. And still now most pharma companies are engaging a majority of their r and d spending into oncology.
I may sound cynical, but I wonder if pharma companies would ever be interested in search for a cure for a malignancy or other deadly disease. Wouldn’t it be harming their own interests?
Why would a profit-driven company turn away curing the second leading cause of death? It's a market whose yearly demand is going to be in the tens to hundreds of thousands in the US alone, even if you're only going to be on the drug for a short amount of time.
Blame it on boomers in both business and government, running both in true live fast die young fashion.
Plastics pollution, BPA in our receipt paper, drugs and hormones being pissed out into our toilets into the common water supply - large parts of the global economy have been allowed to thrive due to neglect of appropriately pricing in negative externalities, if they are considered at all. What is the TRUE cost of using plastic in everyday product? What is the TRUE cost of the advertising and adoption of birth control pills, or OTC drugs? Some people benefit from short-term profits now, but in the end everyone loses.
Can't speak for parent, but birth control pills artificially boost estrogen levels.
My wife just emerged from a multiyear battle with aggressive HER2/ER/PR positive breast cancer after taking decades of birth control pills.
Correlation is not causation, but NHS are extremely strict about chemically induced menopause via Tamoxifen now, to suppress her natural estrogen production.
With the exception of cancers where checkpoint inhibitor and engineered T cells work (i.e. 60% of melanomas) I agree that others, like solid tumor which are hard to reach and slow to detect, haven’t had the same attention.
The National Cancer Institute funds about 11% of new R01s, which is the mechanism that funds most academic labs. Their payline is among the lowest of the NIH’s Institutes, though to some extent this might be because they are one of the largest institutes and people chase the money: you could probably find a home for any proposal at two or three institutes. More data here: https://report.nih.gov/success_rates/Success_ByIC.cfm
With a few exceptions, the NSF doesn’t fund things that directly address diseases, so it’s hard to find a number for cancer specifically. Nevertheless, the overall payline is pretty similar.
That said, I’d argue that the solution is not (just) more money, but massive changes in how we fund and organize research too.
Besides governments allocating less funding to research, prevention and treatment--for cancer as well as other grave ailments--than they could, what especially irks me is this: negligent practices carried out by big corporations to which authorities have always turned a blind eye. The sheer amount of unregulated, harmful practices that has come to define our current lifestyle is abominable. Radiation, pollution, carcinogenic and generally unsafe food, hygiene products, food and liquid containers... All factors whose pervasiveness correlates with cancer cases skyrocketing.
We should all be willing to reflect upon what we're doing to our personal and collective health, and if our lifestyles are actually sustainable or do require to be reformed.