> There’s no evidence than just pouring more money into cancer research is going to give us a miracle cure.
The HPV vaccine will almost entirely wipe out cervical cancer: not by curing it, but preventing it entirely. Not sure if that meets your “miracle” standard, but it’s a totally unreasonable standard to apply to scientific research. By definition, a miracle is something that is not physically possible.
Research seems expensive, yes. You have to work in every possible direction, fumbling in the dark metaphorically, because you don’t know the answers yet. It’s a lot messier than giving a hungry person a meal. But hundreds of years of research have made that meal way more abundant and less expensive…
In the grand scope of the country, we spend quite small amounts on research. The U.S. GDP generates half a billion dollars in less than 10 minutes, for example. It’s less than what we spend on takeout coffee.
> The HPV vaccine will almost entirely wipe out cervical cancer: not by curing it, but preventing it entirely.
That only underlines my point. The HPV vaccine was in not really a product of cancer research, in terms of the cancer itself. It’s purely a multivalent viral vaccine with the munificent effect of preventing several cancers and nasty genital warts as an additional motivator. It has saved many thousands of lives that would have been lost with the best available cancer treatments and avoided their costly and excruciating effects.
It’s too early to write off cervical cancer, besides HPV-negative ones, there are evolving strains not covered and a huge pool of viral reserves worldwide and among the unvaccinated in the USA. A universal mandate won’t happen and coverage isn’t high enough to eradicate it.
Prevention is important for almost all cancers. There will likely be other vaccines in the future targeting carcinogenic infections but most cancers don’t have a simple infectious cause. Cancer is a family of nasty diseases that has time and again defied all pronouncements of impending universal cures.
The HPV vaccine will almost entirely wipe out cervical cancer: not by curing it, but preventing it entirely. Not sure if that meets your “miracle” standard, but it’s a totally unreasonable standard to apply to scientific research. By definition, a miracle is something that is not physically possible.
Research seems expensive, yes. You have to work in every possible direction, fumbling in the dark metaphorically, because you don’t know the answers yet. It’s a lot messier than giving a hungry person a meal. But hundreds of years of research have made that meal way more abundant and less expensive…
In the grand scope of the country, we spend quite small amounts on research. The U.S. GDP generates half a billion dollars in less than 10 minutes, for example. It’s less than what we spend on takeout coffee.