President Obama took a few minutes in his State of the Union Address to propose the U.S. embark on a “moonshot” effort to cure cancer. It’s an ambitious and worthy goal, though let’s hope he’s better at finding a cure for cancer than he is at fixing the health insurance system.
Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer… Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.
That’s a tall order for a lame duck vice president with only one year left! At least Hillary Clinton deferred her goal of curing Alzheimer’s until 2025.
However, Obama’s comment reveals a real ignorance about the cancer challenge.
The American Association for Cancer Research Foundation points out, “Cancer isn’t a single disease. The term cancer encompasses more than 200 diseases all characterized by the uncontrolled proliferation of cells.”
Those affected tissues can be skin cells, bone cells, organs, blood cells, lymph nodes and others. And the treatments can vary significantly. In other words, there is no “cure for cancer,” because there are so many different forms of cancer.
But even the word “cure” is misleading. For example, the American Cancer Society says:
Most doctors avoid using the word “cure” because it implies that the cancer is gone forever. [T]his is almost impossible to say in any case of cancer. The best a doctor can do is say that they can find no signs of cancer in your body at this time.
In the cancer field, doctors and scientists usually speak of “survival rates” more than cures. As the American Society for Clinical Oncology explains:
Today, two out of three people live at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, up from roughly one out of two in the 1970s. There are nearly 14 million survivors in the United States alone. Fueled by earlier detection and better treatments, the nation’s cancer death rate has dropped 20 percent since the early 1990s, reversing decades of increases.
As the ASCO statement implies, while there may not be a cure for cancer, medical science has made a lot of progress. But most of that progress has come from the private sector prescription drug companies.
The ASCO says there are “170 drug indications [for cancer] today, most approved in the last decade.”
Obama praised Biden for pushing for more cancer funding, which researchers no doubt appreciate. But the president’s only solution for “curing cancer”—like his only solution for any problem—is to throw more taxpayer money at it.
The fact is the government doesn’t find cures, the private sector does. The National Institutes of Health, the umbrella agency for the National Cancer Institute, does basic research. The drug companies translate those efforts into actual medicines. And drug companies have poured billions into cancer research—far more than the federal government—money that they, not taxpayers, will lose if those drugs fail.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) reports that there are currently 3,070 cancer medicines in the research pipeline: 158 for ovarian cancer; 28 for cervical cancer; and 41 for small cell lung cancer, just to name a few.
Many of those drugs won’t make it through the Food and Drug Administration approval process for use on patients, but some probably will—and one of them may save your life.
However, Obama and Hillary have had nothing but criticism for the drug industry. When Clinton announced her intention to impose price controls on prescription drugs last September, drug and biotech companies’ stock tanked, wiping out billions of dollars in assets—assets that might have supported cancer research.
Joe Biden will not find a cure for cancer. Any “moonshot” will come from private sector companies devoted to that cause. Maybe Obama could find a few good words for them.