No, more money is needed. 41% of deaths are due to cancer. It really is one of the biggest problems we have as a species and we should spend more effort on it rather than the things we do spend effort on.
But I wholeheartedly agree that rather than trying to be a billg and earn money to fund philanthropy, the world needs more researchers.
"In 2010, 65% of all deaths worldwide were due to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and cancer. 15% of all deaths worldwide, nearly 8 million people, were due to cancer alone. The number of deaths worldwide from cancer dwarfs the number of global deaths from malaria and HIV/AIDS, as is projected to exceed 13 million by 2030."
> No, more money is needed. 41% of deaths are due to cancer. It really is one of the biggest problems we have as a species and we should spend more effort on it rather than the things we do spend effort on.
The first sentence and the next two aren't at all related. It's possible that the amount of money we're collectively spending right now is all that can be used effectively, and more money will yield at best highly diminishing returns.
There's really no way around the need for written grant proposals, so the solution seems like "research teams should allocate a decent wage for a good grantwriter". Surely there are talented technical writers out there who would happily join with these noble causes, if only the jobs were there (and financially viable for the writer).
I'm not convinced that what this world needs is research into keeping sick people alive longer. We have lots of people as it is.
When I was a kid childhood leukemia was a death sentence. These days survival rates are in the 80% and up range.
The goal isn't non-dead sick people. It's well people.
Attacking that problem doesn't mean that you can't attack the problem of too many people too. Hopefully in a more productive way than having a horrible, lingering, painful disease solve it for us.
Yup -- the first thing public health students learn is the WHO definition of health: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." In my clinical trials course, equal emphasis was put on extending life and increasing quality of life (e.g., as measured by quality adjusted life-years (QALYs)).
"I'm not convinced that what this world needs is research into keeping sick people alive longer."
Given that the average costs of bringing up any single individual are nowadays probably at an all-time high, it makes sense to invest something into keeping those people from dying prematurely.
Also, this is less about keeping sick people alive longer, but about making them unsick, or even prevent them from becoming sick in the first place (prevention, timely diagnosis, study of the immune system behavior and reactions related to the cancer onset).
Would you stand by that statement if you were diagnosed with terminal cancer tomorrow? Your spouse? Child? The point isn't to keep sick people alive longer, it's to make them not sick.
I know in this kind of nerdy community of which I am a part, this might be considered to be a hip statement or "logical" or some such nonsense. But I am going to just be honest and say if that is your view, you're a horrible person. That's just such garbage.
EDIT - I had a little time to think about your statement a little. Your statements are basically just ridiculous venom. In any other venue, it would be met with the vitriol it really deserves but I just find this to be essentially inhuman.
But I wholeheartedly agree that rather than trying to be a billg and earn money to fund philanthropy, the world needs more researchers.