MSNBC – My daily work as an oncologist is often sobering and difficult.
[How sad; the average salary for a oncologist is $352,537 per year in the United States. Jobs paying that much are not supposed to be easy. – HEADLINE HEALTH]
From diagnosis to treatment, cancer journeys can be fraught with uncertainty and emotional turmoil.
But I find hope through the steely resolve of my patients and in the boundless promise of ongoing cancer research.
While my patients remain as intrepid as ever, this vital research now stands to be choked off by the Trump administration’s budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including termination of existing grants at universities and mass layoffs.
The NIH is the largest funder of cancer research in the United States, providing roughly $8 billion annually that flows down to universities, medical centers and other grant recipients.
Furthermore, the Republican-led Congress is set to take a scythe to several parts of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) that support work on many crucial types of cancers, including those of the pancreas, lungs and kidneys.
For decades, presidential administrations have made a cure for cancer part of their ambitions, and their goals have had bipartisan support.
“A lot of the basic science and pathways we identify, things to study, come from academic labs,” says Dr. Suneel Kamath, an oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. “Whatever pharma will eventually make drugs for through drug development, a lot of the initial targets will be found in university settings. So we will fall behind on those things.”
For decades, presidential administrations have made a cure for cancer part of their ambitions, and their goals have had bipartisan support. Richard Nixon declared a “war on cancer” by signing the National Cancer Act into law Dec. 23, 1971. It infused nearly $1.6 billion in federal funding to cancer research over three years. Forty-five years later, under President Barack Obama, then-Vice President Joe Biden launched the multibillion-dollar Cancer Moonshot project …
OUR VIEW – HEADLINE HEALTH
“Oncology drugs reached $176 billion in sales in 2021, more than double that of the next item on the list, vaccines with $88.6 billion dollars in sales. By 2026, cancer drug sales are expected to almost double to $320.6 billion.” – The Drugs That Bring in the Most Pharma Revenue, STATISTA, Feb 4, 2022
HEADLINE HEALTH – The cancer industry is rolling in dough.
The notion that taxpayers should bear the cost of research and development while crony capitalists keep the profits is absurd. If taxpayers are going to invest in the research, they should get the profit.
We propose this choice: the cancer industry can write a check to the US Treasury for its projected $320 billion a year in cancer drug sales, or they can give up a small fraction of that in taxpayer funding. Cry me a river, Dr. Baig.
