Birth of a failed institution
Watch the video:
FDR's reading copy of his 1940 address
For over 80 years, our country has promised to wage a war against the most prolific killer of our time: cancer.
Since 1937, there has been one government agency tasked with the sole responsibility of putting an end to cancer. That agency is the national cancer Institute.
When the NCI was created in 1937, cancer was the cause of 10% of deaths in the United States.
Over 80 years later, Americans now witness cancer deaths four times that amount, and that now accounts for nearly 25% of all deaths in the US; more than four times the amount of deaths since 1938.
How can we spend almost a century attempting to cure cancer and have more than four times the deaths than when we first started? Maybe understanding how the NCI works will offer an explanation for this massive failure.
Most Americans think that the NCI has extensive research teams working feverishly within the walls of the NCI.
Sadly, this is not the way it works. In fact, there are actually only about 3,500 people that work for the NCI. That is less than 10% of the staff working for NASA in the 1960s when our country made a national commitment to land a man on the moon.
This is how the NCI works. Money is dispersed from the national institutes of health to the NCI. Once in the hands of the NCI, just over 60% is doled out through grants to hospitals, big pharma and university laboratories. The majority of the money goes to university laboratories for students to complete their academic requirements to graduate.
Little or no research is conducted in the NCI. The word cure is not even in the mission statement for the NCI. By nearly every standard, the NCI has been a complete failure since 1938.
The U S population has more than doubled and the number of cancer deaths has more than quadrupled.
Here's a very reasonable question. If you had one job to accomplish and almost a century later, you still haven't accomplished your goal, would you expect to still have your job?
How do we restructure the NCI from its almost century old legacy of failure into an institution of life-saving success?
Perhaps president Kennedy's words from 1961, as we launched the space program could serve as the inspiration for re-imagining the NCI.
“We possess all the resources and talents necessary, but the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshall the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long range goals on an urgent time schedule or managed our resources and our time. So as to ensure their fulfillment.”
— President John F. Kennedy speaks before a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961.
The NCI needs to replace its uninspirational mission statement and adopt president Kennedy's words he used to jettison our nation to the once seemingly impossible accomplishment of all mankind and land a man on the moon.
How do we convince our government to fulfill their promise of a cure for cancer?
How do we convince them to spend man on the moon type money to find the cure?
Send a letter to your elected officials. Takes less than 2 minutes.
