Stand Up to Cancer
September 16th, 2008 by Barb
“If a war were killing 565,000 Americans a year (and none of our wars ever has), you’d hear more than one or two references to it at the party conventions.”
–Jonathan Alter, Newsweek (Sept. 15, 2008)
Alter goes on to discuss the sad state of cancer research in this country:
“It’s not just that fewer than two in 10 applications for NIH grants are funded—down sharply under President Bush. It’s that the wrong researchers often get the money … Older researchers with old-boy-network contacts receive a disproportionate amount of the funding … younger, less-connected but more creative researchers, the ones most likely to find cures, are leaving medical research in droves because they can’t get funded. That’s where Stand Up to Cancer comes in.”
You may have seen the one-hour special that aired on Sept. 5, a star-studded event to raise funds to fight cancer. I thought “Stand Up to Cancer” referred just to that one-time special, but it turns out to be an ongoing organization. According to Alter, the funds it raises will be “devoted to highly innovative grants and to ‘dream teams’ of doctors who work in collaboration rather than along parallel lines.”
You can donate here. And please also think about participating in the American Cancer Society’s cancer prevention study that I wrote about last month.
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