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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009
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5

Why Cancer Researchers Are Playing it Safe

Long-shots are risky to fund, so grants go to less ambitious studies

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(Newser) – If you're a cancer researcher, it's harder to get money to investigate a potentially field-changing question than to find out whether a food's tastiness affects dieting. The reason is simple but problematic: With limited funding available and lots of research to do, grant-givers don't want to lose money on a long shot, writes the New York Times.

But the risky studies often lead to breakthroughs, like the drug that has saved the lives of women with particularly aggressive breast cancer. Its discoverer had to turn to a cosmetics company for money because his official grant proposal was rejected. The projects that are funded "are not silly, but they are only likely to produce incremental progress," a scientist explains.

Despite all the support for cancer research from celebs like Fran Drescher and Sharon Osbourne, doctors aren't able to save very many more people now than they were several decades ago.
Despite all the support for cancer research from celebs like Fran Drescher and Sharon Osbourne, doctors aren't able to save very many more people now than they were several decades ago.   (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)
Checks Unlimited has raised more than $157,000 for breast cancer research. While funding is critical, so is a willingness to give money to long-shot studies that might produce a breakthrough.
Checks Unlimited has raised more than $157,000 for breast cancer research. While funding is critical, so is a willingness to give money to long-shot studies that might produce a breakthrough.   (Photo: Deluxe Corporation)
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The system probably provides disincentives to funding really transformative research. - Dr. Raynard S. Kington, acting director of the National Institutes of Health

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5 comments
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UrUndertaker
Jun 28, 09 1:07 PM CDT
And besides, if they found the cure to cancer aid's and many other illnesses how would they become rich off the people they are suppose to care for Reply
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+4
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Mad
Jun 28, 09 4:40 PM CDT
Big Pharm isn't looking to cure anyone, as you pointed out there is little money in that. Developing maintenance drugs that ease some of your symptoms but not quite heal you are the real money makers
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+3
TerrifiedCitizen
Jun 28, 09 2:52 PM CDT
A people that used to shoot for nothing less than the stars, now shoots for the floorboards. The dumbing down of America continues. Reply
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+2
Reader64481089
Jun 28, 09 5:33 PM CDT
It isn't "dumbing down" although that is happening I admit. What is the real cause is plain and simple business, if they eradicate the disease then they will be unable to profit and there in lies the problem for them. There is no urgency to find a cure when billions can be made via research grants as well as stated above, maintenance medications they can suck you dry for 20 to 30 years and after that all bets are off. Reply
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+3
fancygapva
Jun 29, 09 12:26 AM CDT
A few days ago there was a story of shocked and surprised researchers who used a med that was supposed to slow down an aggressive prostate cancer in terminally ill men. Seems it eradicated the cancer and it was still gone 18 months later after the subjects were supposed to have died. SHOCK! a medication that actually cured something and apparently the side effects weren't worse than the disease it cured--unlike most meds today. Hey! If your lashes aren't long enough There's an ap for that. Reply
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+1
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