How much is enough... (with additions 3/2/07)

We are beginning to enter the "season" when the American Cancer Society comes knocking by way of Relay For Life community fund raising campaigns. You are SURE to hear about the reduction in cancer deaths which will be used to leverage contributions because the reduction shows all the money spent by the ACS is beginning to show "results."

If you don't keep up with the efforts of Lance Armstrong, I encourage you to visit the LIVESTRONG.org web site and blog regularly. Lance appears to be our current lone voice crying in the cancer wilderness.

There have been many lone voices over the years. In case you may have thought "National" cancer initiatives started with the National Cancer Act of 1971, think again. The first National cancer legislation I can find was S 5589 which was introduced February 4, 1927 which offered a reward of 5 million dollars for the discovery of the successful cure for cancer. It didn't take them long to realize what a massive can of worms a reward would unleash.

The first National Cancer Act was passed ten years later and signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt August 5, 1937. This was the beginning of the National Cancer Institute which still exists today.

Around 1970, Mary Lasker lead a movement which included Dr. Sidney Farber (among others) which produced the National Cancer Act of December 23, 1971. That lead to increased enthusiasm and funding for cancer research and spawned the war metaphor currently applied to the effort to find a cure for the more than 200 forms of cancer.

There may have been other voices but the next prominent voice crying in the cancer wilderness was Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). She and others sponsored a new National Cancer Act of 2002 (S. 1976/H.R. 4596 and S. 2955) which was designed to increase funding for research and renew enthusiasm among other things (read for yourself if you want to: http://olpa.od.nih.gov/legislation/107/pendinglegislation/10nationalcancer.asp ). There was a lot said about the bill by the media but essentially, the bill sat on the table until the end of the Congressional year where it died never to be brought up again as far as I know.

Getting back to Lance, following is an excerpt from his blog which I thought was a very graceful way to complain about the continued lack of significant results in the "war" on cancer.

Please read on...

"we MUST do more

I've gotten a lot of emails about some recently released research showing that cancer deaths dropped for the second straight year (read the story, read Cancer Statistics 2007). The research conducted by the American Cancer Society shows that there were 3,014 fewer deaths due to cancer from 2003 to 2004 (the most recently available data) than in the previous year. After reading about the findings and listening to people talk about it on TV and Radio, I can't help but think: the efforts over the past 30 years have finally yielded a drop in deaths. that's a great thing. that’s what we are all working for. but it's too little. way too little. we cannot declare victory today.

we MUST do more.

The report says we are making the greatest progress against breast, prostate and colorectal cancers…but

we MUST do more.

The report notes that the federal breast and cervical program only reaches 1 in 5 eligible women between ages 50-64 as currently funded. I know that if we increased federal funding to this program by $669 million (approximately what we spend every 2.5 days in Iraq) over 5 years, we could screen up to 450,000 more women annually and save even more lives.

we MUST do more.

Currently there is NO federal screening program for colorectal cancer, but we know that up to 80% of the cancer incidences in people 50-64 could be prevented, if these individuals were screened using colorectal screening guidelines that are already in place.

we MUST do more.

Date Created: 1/17/2007 3:32:52 PM"

Let's do some math to try to put what Lance is saying in perspective.

The American Cancer Society found cancer deaths dropped to 553,888 in 2004, down from 556,902 in 2003 and 557,271 in 2002. That is a decline of 369 from 02 to 03 and a decline of 3,014 from 03 to 04. In other words, there was a reduction of approximately one half of one percent (.54121%) in the number of cancer deaths in 2004 as compared with the previous year according to the American Cancer Society.

Please stay with me here. Let's attempt to get these huge numbers down to a level a little closer to home. Suppose you declared "war" on your waste line and wanted to loose some body fat. Most likely, you would gauge your results by weighing yourself periodically. Suppose you began your "war" weighing 200 pounds. Your war "efforts" went on throughout the year. There were some ups and downs and at the end of the year you weighed in at 199 pounds. Your year long war on body fat yielded you a .54121% loss.

Wouldn't you be simply ecstatic about that (I ask you somewhat sarcastically)? Wouldn't you want to publicize your results by telling all your friends and family of your accomplishments? Of course you would if you were the American Cancer Society mired in a 30 year "war" which has morphed into an institution predominately concerned with maintaining its status quo which results in, "for every $1 spent on direct service, approximately $6.40 is spent on compensation and overhead." http://www.preventcancer.com/losing/acs/wealthiest_links.htm


ADDED March 2, 2007:
In other words, if you donate $20 to the ACS, about $3 will get used for "direct services" according to this web site. I have reviewed the ACS financials and charity rating services (such as http://www.charitynavigator.org/ ) which seem to support these numbers. At any rate, if you think every dollar you donate to the ACS goes directly to finding a cure for cancer, you may need to do some additional research. Thus the title of this post, "How much is enough." I don't think that is a good enough return for all the hard work, good intentions, and high expectations of the good people who pour out their hearts in the Relay For Life campaigns.

Also, in the analogy above, the ACS is reporting on the cancer death rate in general. If you factor in the fact that the lower death rate "results" are shared by numerous charitable cancer organizations and the federally funded National Cancer Institute, that whopping one half of one percent reduction might be ONE TENTH of one percent attributable to the efforts of the ACS.

Don't let this grim reality stop you from participating in Relay for Life. Even though the ACS may be squandering a good portion of the contributions, worse things have happened and continue to happen in the name of charitable contributions.

If Relay for Life doesn't do anything else, it keeps the fact that over 500,000 people will die with cancer this year before the public eye lest they grow complacent and forget. We need to be doing something about cancer and Relay for Life is as good a something as we have right now. Maybe Lance Armstrong or some other lone voice crying in the cancer wilderness will lead us in a different direction in the future. I doubt Relay for Life will lead to a public demand that the ACS do more with the money they get and work harder toward some REAL results. But Relay for Life will keep the cancer blight in the public eye in as dramatic a fashion as is currently possible. So, go ahead and participate in Relay for Life in every way you can.

END OF 3/2/07 addition.

The best we can hope for in this "war on cancer" is that all the knowledge which we have accumulated about cancer and genetics since it's earliest discovery can be represented by an exponential curve.

We can only hope that we are coming out of the "dormant" phase of the exponential curve and reaching a "critical mass." With the discovery of DNA and decoding of the human genome, we should be poised for an exponential launch into a level of genetic understanding which will yield "cures" for all genetic disorders including the more than 200 forms of cancer.

Don't you agree with Lance?

we MUST do more!

http://www.livestrong.org/site/c.jvKZLbMRIsG/b.594849/k.CC7C/Home.htm



Cancer oriented groups I contribute to:

Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF)
http://www.multiplemyeloma.org/

Mayo Clinic Cancer Drive
http://www.mayoclinic.org/development/

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/hm_lls

American Cancer Society

By default - National Cancer Institute (Federal Income Tax)