From: chrz@tellabs.com (Peter Chrzanowski)
Subject: Re: A Soc.Presidential Election Poll! Please Respond!
Organization: Tellabs, Inc.
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 00:35:20 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.224952.23692@leland.Stanford.EDU>, farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
> In article <1992Nov2.170238.10284@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
> >It does seem to me that our funding system is based primarily on political
> >pressure rather than medical merit, though.  Which really is a pity, I
> >think. 
> 
> So you think it's a pity.  That's still the way governmental funding
> of anything works.  Why do you think ACT UP was formed?

A lot of us are beginning to wish ACT UP didn't exist and, from what I read,
AIDS researchers don't much appreciate having their conferences disrupted.

Governmental funding of medical research has recently been moving AWAY
from peer review (where the standard is scientific merit) and TOWARD
appeasement of noisy constituents.  It stinks.
> 
> I happen to think it's ridiculous that 1/3 of 1% of medical research
> funding goes into researching new forms of contraception.  Until
> there's a political mandate to change this, I can think it's
> ridiculous all I want.

Perhaps it's not a question of "political mandate" but a question of
whether promising areas of scientific enquiry exist?  You could spend
all you want on antigravity  ...
> 
> >However, 'breast cancer' appears to me to be being funded well beyond any
> >comparable form of cancer (in both absolute terms and fundings per death)-
> >and is being used as a 'political football'.
> 
> Breast cancer is the leading cancer in women.  It's second only to
> lung cancer in the number of female victims it claims.

You failed to anwser the points listed above.
> 
> We still don't know why women get breast cancer.  For a long time, fat
> intake and obesity were thought to influence it (from the breast
> cancer rates in different countries).  However, a recent study found
> no correlation in American women. 

The funds available for breast cancer research have DOUBLED this year,
and yet there are not twice as many researchers nor twice as many
promising avenues to be investigated; in fact, nobody really knows
how to spend the money -- only that it "should" be spent.

I've had (metastatic) cancer and I can understand how a person with
a life-threatening disease could be angry, yet I'm stunned by the
pure selfishness and lack of critical thinking behind the idea that,
"they'd cure this disease that threatens ME if only they'd spend
more money!".  As if disease cures could be produced on demand.

> 
> >The breast cancer funding issue alone isn't significant alone, all by
> >itself, but is symptomatic of the broader problems with Clinton's allegedly
> >"pro-woman" agenda, which unfortunately (IMO) winds up to be "pro-woman" at
> >the expense of men in many cases.
> 
> I don't see where Clinton is anti-men.  I know that his view on "dead
> beat dads" has raised the hackles of many here on the net.

Paul Tsongas called Clinton a "pander bear," and so he is:  something for 
any group that squawks loud enough.  What remains to be seen is whether 
he'll find his spine now that he's been elected.
> 
> I've heard the same claims made for AIDS funding (that it's far beyond
> what is needed). 

Even though I've been treated for cancer and seem to be at low risk for 
AIDS it seems obvious to me that AIDS presents a far greater risk to 
public health than cancer: because it is a contagious disease it contains 
the potential for exponential growth.  In contrast, the main reason why
more people die of cancer today is because more people live long enough
to get it.

AIDS is also a relatively new disease, while cancer has been known for 
millenia.  It therefore makes sense that many promising areas of research 
in AIDS would exist, but that many promising areas of cancer research
would have been "mined out " long ago.