The Cancer Industrial Complex
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From the time American tax dollars enter the government's pockets, decisions are made as to how that money is spent by your elected officials.
After funding decisions are reached, a portion of that total sum of money is deposited into the national institutes of health or the NIH then distributes a portion of their money to the national cancer Institute or the NCI. That amount of money is equal to just one penny of every $100.
Our government spends 0.01% of the entire federal budget for cancer research that affects 1.8 million Americans health and future every year. How the money is spent after that is worth taking a look at. Let's follow the money after the NCI gets funding deposited into their bank account.
Once the NCI receives the money, it begins to be given out in grants, also known as free money. The majority of the funding goes to universities to fund their laboratories for their students. Along with universities, the next recipients of free grant money are big pharma and then large hospital groups. These three groups are the primary recipients of the free money, the NCI hands out, but the money doesn't stop there.
Let's look at big pharma first.
They probably receive the least of the funding, but before you feel bad for them, let's remember, they also reap big profits. They sell their drugs to hospital groups that administer them to the 1.8 million Americans that receive a cancer diagnosis and the 610,000 Americans that lose their battle to cancer each year, making them billions in profits.
The next largest recipient of funds are large hospital groups. Once again, don't feel bad for them either after they buy these drugs from big pharma, they mark up the costs and then sell them with large profits to the millions of Americans suffering from cancer.
The largest recipients of free grant money are the universities.
This money is presumably used to fund their laboratories. However, universities also spend a lot of money lobbying Congress for more free money and favorable rules on laws that govern their financial future. This continued circle of money is also prevalent in big pharma and hospital groups. As they lobby elected officials for money and favorable decisions regarding laws and regulations that affect their future successes.
As you follow the money in our country's supposed quest to cure cancer, we as Americans need to ask the tough questions. How intent is our government on saving the lives of all those that suffer from cancer after nearly a century of supposed commitment to curing cancer?
Perhaps the entire process and organizations involved need to be reimagined, restructured and built back into a fruitful quest to find a cure.
The NCI conducts little to no work of their own toward cancer research and finding a cure. This process would be similar to you having your neighbor or a complete stranger raise your children. The only exception is your neighbor or a stranger would probably do a better job raising your child than the NCI has done organizing and doling out their money for research they don't even control other than accepting and approving the applicant's request for free grant money.
With less than 3,500 people working at the NCI of which only 2,100 of those employees are full time, and the NCI giving out over 14,000 grants in a year, it has to beg the question how in the world could 2,100 full-time people at the NCI, even peer review over 14,000 grant research projects that were handed out in 2018? Not to mention more than likely, the majority of the staff at the NCI are probably not researchers, but rather clerical staff and others that have little to no knowledge of cancer research,.
This broken institution and the trading of funds around the country to the recipients that continue to fail us, as more and more Americans continue to die, must be reimagined and rebuilt into an institution that focuses on finding a cure rather than merely doling out funds to other institutions, claiming to do their work.
Here's a question ponder: should our country find a cure for cancer? What would happen to the billions that continue to move through these circles of supposed research year after year? Our country's leaders should be asking these reasonable and tough questions to the people in charge at the NIH and the NCI.
The American people deserve this type of oversight. As millions of Americans continue to die at the hands of their failures, it is way past time to reimagine this failed institution that the NCI has become until the NCI is broken down and rebuilt with the express purpose of curing cancer. Sadly, it will continue to be business as usual with millions of Americans suffering at the continued negligence of their lack of efforts.
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.
