Damage Control

Now there's a surprise. Hard on the heels, so to speak, of a Canadian national newspaper's front-page spread of the inside story behind cancer research, trials, tribulations and hopes, aligned with the sad and sorry fact that not all that much actual progress has been made in the 'battle' against cancer, comes another story in another newspaper, part of the same chain as the first, that has the look of a paid advertisement, but doesn't state it to be that.

It is an obvious attempt at even-handedness; the first, more exhaustive story one of dashing the hopes of those afflicted with cancer and the myriads more fearing cancer within any society, calling into question the charitable and government-sourced funding of cancer research, given the less than inspiring results. Through the story that has followed -- telling another story, from the perspective of researchers, lab technicians and the continued aspiration toward discoveries that will, in the final analysis, spark the difference between holding our own against the dread disease and discovering protocols that are less invasive to the human body -- offering far more balm to the human spirit.

"It generally takes four or five laboratory technicians, students and post docs to generate a significant discovery in a two to three year time frame. Each one requires approximately $25,000 per year for supplies needed for their part of the project - so that roughly adds up to a range of $600,000 to $2- million over a two to three year period", advises Dr. David Stojdl, a scientist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute.

"On average, the budget required to operate a research lab varies between $200,000 to half a million dollars per year. This covers staffing and lab equipment; then you need to add the cost of the cancer cells samples -- and those are about $400 for each experiment."
"We often work together in multidisciplinary teams. The unfortunate part is that many projects may not produce the results we need, especially if you're trying hard to make a major discovery. A $1-2-million investment won't necessarily guarantee success -- just a critical shot at success."

The reading public that pays attention to the results of medical-scientific discoveries - as indeed most scientific discoveries, also has an idea from factual accounts that breakthroughs are often the result of sheer serendipity -- not the results of deliberate laboratory experiments designed to find breakthrough discoveries. Not that sheer dogged persistence does not result from time to time in meaningful realizations of new techniques and protocols that will be useful in delivering new medical treatments.

The brunt of the argument is that hypotheses must be tested, and those tests are costly. It cannot be denied that research findings and the occasional true milestone like that reached through the 1920s experiments of Banting and Best and the discovery of insulin leading to the preservation and prolongation of life for people with insulin-dependent diabetes whose condition was once a certain death-sentence, has proven the efficacy of research.

Despite everything, the unstated failures, the delays in bringing the results of new discoveries to practise, the expectations dashed because of premature announcements falsely raising hope, there is a definite need to continue funding scientific medical research.

• microscopes - $15,000 to over $100,000
• sophisticated, 3-dimensional microscopes - $500,000
• centrifuges, $40,000; specialized ultra-cold freezers $10,000
• one lab technician for one year $50,000
• enough cancer cells for one experiment, inclusive of shipping, $300 to $500
• enzymes, necessary for modern molecular biology, $100 to $300
• single test tube, dime or nickel
• clinical trials or epidemiological studies, millions