Loosing a running battle

Why is it so hard to make long term decisions? Why is it so hard to break out of conventional thinking when the facts tell you you should? There is a recurring theme here; why is it so hard to change when we know we really need to? I have been pondering these questions for many years. Last night I was watching a program on the battle against cancer showing that we are essentially loosing it. Not that the research into cures is without results, but the number of people getting cancer is growing faster than we can come up with cures. The holy grail of genetics is proving to be harder to find than we had hoped and can only be applied to very specific cases at high costs and at the moment you need to take the drugs for the rest of your live.

In the fight against cancer more and more treatments are found to alleviate suffering, halt tumor growth and postpone death. We are growing towards a situation where cancer will become a chronic disease like diabetes or asthma, with the lifelong dependency on the taking of drugs as a result. In this it is very much like the way our society deals with some of its most persistent problems such as multi cultural integration, social security and the ever growing pressure of economic growth on our environment. We create stop gap solutions that keep everybody happy on the short term without solving the issues on the long term. Hello asbestos, oil dependency and the hole in the ozone layer. Not to mention global warming.

When fighting a war, it is good to know who does most of the propaganda. The pharmaceutical industry as a whole has a vested interest in cancer as a chronic disease. Ninety-five percent of the annual budget for cancer research goes into finding new treatments; the meager rest goes into prevention. There is no drive to change the distribution of funds towards prevention, even though the scientific majority states that how we deal with our environment in preventing cancer will very probably deliver far better results than finding cures. This absence of willingness to change is completely in line with the political clout and deep pockets the pharmaceuticals have when it comes to deciding the agenda for cancer research. If we look at the part of the budget that goes to research into the mechanism of metastasis, the factor that causes ninety percent of all cancer related deaths, it is only ten percent. Metastasis is apparently too complex a mechanism to research and takes too long to provide a return on investment. Don’t get me wrong; from the standpoint of the industry this is a very valid reason not to pursue research. Why then are our governments not stepping in to fill the gap through sponsoring the scientific community in performing research into prevention and metastasis and provide legislation to prescribe the distribution of funds?

They do not know any better, pharmaceutical lobbyists have a vested interest and the power to get an appointment. The oncology professors with the knowledge to make a change lack the time to do a running battle with pharmaceutical lobbyists who not only have the time to plan their attack, but also have the time to translate their message into easily understood one-liners. Let’s face it, we did not choose our representatives for their superior knowledge of cancer, so we can hardly blame them for choosing to go the route of easily understandable sound bytes instead of the thorough route of understanding all the complex mechanisms involved in fighting cancer. If we can not cope with cause of death number one and prevent people from getting cancer in the first place, what does that tell you about the society we live in?

It is not the fact that our representatives do not make an effort. They do and do so with our best interests at hart. The problem is the way in which they do it. They are not making a collaborative effort together with industry, science and patient organizations even though they think they do. They go to big conferences, speak to all parties separately and then draft a proposal with their civil servants, a proposal that is then sent to the involved parties for their OK. The result is a compromise with all pieces of the puzzle and no holistic view of the whole. Talking to all parties involved and giving them a voice may be politically correct, but is by no means the same as collaborating with them to get win-win policies.

To ensure you have all the relevant pieces and a holistic view to combine them in the proper order, you need to work together closely with all parties involved. Not sequentially, but at the same time and with proper interaction between them all. The only way to make informed long term decisions is with all parties with a vested interest. For this you need a process to synchronize their value systems, provide a common goal and meet all individual goals at the same time. This takes hard work and strong direction, but certainly less time than the current approach, so why not give up the running battle for funds and start the battle against cancer?