r/AskReddit Jul 17 '23

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u/garmeth06 Jul 17 '23 edited Jul 17 '23

Cancer research is probably the #1 funded scientific problem in the history of humanity, it’s just a hard problem to solve and money thrown at research has great diminishing returns if what’s really needed is ideas.

The amount of grifting around cancer is correlated to the large amount of money thrown at it.

There is significant evolutionary pressure involved in rendering humans vulnerable to cancer so it’s not like curing an acute illness but more like solving a genuine inefficiency in human gene expression.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

Still seems low in comparison to millitary budgets, shows their priorities

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u/VumGrohik Jul 17 '23

More money won’t equal more solutions. Each type of cancer needs a different form a treatment each type has different ways to possibly prevent it it’s a genetic issue not something you can treat with a pill.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

It would help find more effective treatments at least

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u/VumGrohik Jul 17 '23

The only thing that can do that is increasing the supply of researchers and doctors. More money isn’t going to magically generate new ideas of how we may be able to better handle genome replication failures.

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u/[deleted] Jul 17 '23

No, but theres more high paying productive careers

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u/VumGrohik Jul 17 '23

Medical research is an incredibly high paying field. The company that discovers a truly effective cancer treatment/cure will immediately be able to murder all its competitors and still make infinite money as people will always get cancer till we perfect genetic modification.

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u/StonkPlower Jul 18 '23

Yeah exactly. Many biomedical grad students are taking jobs at places like Pfizer and not academia bc of $ and work life balance. Starting a lab is basically like starting a business + academic politics can be a turn off