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A panel of experts working on the Obama administration's "cancer moonshot" (announced during the President's State of the Union address) recommend a greater focus on immunotherapy. Their report includes these ten summarized recommendations (bonus videos at link):
- Network for direct patient engagement
- Cancer immunotherapy clinical trials network
- Therapeutic target identification to overcome drug resistance
- A national cancer data ecosystem for sharing and analysis
- Fusion oncoproteins in pediatric cancer
- Symptom management research
- Prevention and early detection: implementation of evidence-based approaches
- Retrospective analysis of biospecimens from patients treated with standard of care
- Generation of human tumor atlases
- Development of new enabling cancer technologies
"The goal is to focus investigators into these areas because this is where we feel we can make huge progress in the next five years as opposed to the next 10 years," Berger said. In addition to the 10 scientific approaches that the Blue Ribbon Panel recommended, there are additional special projects. These include a demonstration project to test for Lynch syndrome, a heritable genetic condition that increases risk of several types of cancer, to improve early detection and prevention; the establishment of a nationwide pediatric immunotherapy clinical trials network to enhance the speed with which new immunotherapies can be tested in children; exploring patient-derived organoids; and "microdosing" devices to test drug responses in living tumors.
"It feels like exactly the right time to be launching a big new push against cancer," said Alan Ashworth, PhD, FRS, president of UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. "The report of the Blue Ribbon Panel is bold and imaginative and, if properly funded and implemented, will allow major progress in a considerably accelerated time frame."
Also at The Washington Post and NBC.
Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel Report 2016 Draft (72 page PDF)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:56PM
Note, I said industry because it is WHOLLY and COMPLETELY centered around profits.
That's not true of the software industry?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @10:25PM
Linux wants to be free.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday September 10 2016, @11:04PM
Nobody is entitled to free software, but we should all be entitled to equal and free access to medical. Otherwise, it very quickly escalates to where hellbound immoral shitheads like Shkrelli and Bresch can raise barriers to access for desperately needed medicines. When we're talking about health, we ARE talking about national security concerns since it directly affects the health of our nation and our continued ability to defend our sovereignty and provide a strong and equal foundation for prosperity. 1/4 children are being neurologically damaged beyond all repair (you can't go back in time to properly grow a brain).
If we can say that electricity is so important it necessitates monopolies to provide it to all, then why on God's green Earth is medical not as important? If we lost electricity tomorrow, we could survive. Without medical we may as well go back to the Wild West, and that isn't a good thing.
Medical is something we can all agree on as indispensable as electricity, water, and Internet now. More so than any of the latter needs I just mentioned. There is no reason, other than a loss of undeserved profits to some elites, that medical cannot become something paid for by the state. Most of the objections are based on the corrupt nature of the state, and those problems can be addressed with actually enforced prison terms for executives, shareholders, congressmen, Senators, and Presidents. If you grift from our medical, we throw your asses away permanently and forget about the keys. Yet, we still won't do it because corruption is everywhere, and why needlessly move from one corrupt system to another right?
If we leave medical in the hands of private enterprise, all we will find is that private enterprise will as consistently follow all paths to profit in a decidedly amoral fashion as they already do now. For in Capitalism there is only one moral above all: Profit is good, and all opponents are anti-Freedom.
What do we have now? A medical industry rife with corruption and unsustainable ROI and operational costs wasted on bureaucracy and the avaricious needs of Capitalistic elites afforded the best money can buy. The poor and middle class in the meantime can wait 6 months to see a doctor, and suffer from nearly every rule saying they can't receive A till B occurs, B being the seeing of a doctor. You get cancer? They're happy enough to run you through the old methods for the millions they can bilk out of Medical/Medicair, since upwards of 60% of that money ISN'T going towards YOUR healthcare, but the pockets of monied interests that could afford to pass shit like Title 19 in the first place.
No. Software and medical are not the same things. I can live without sofware. I cannot live without access to medical. At least not very long, and certainly not at the peak production I enjoyed in my young 20's. It's easier and cheaper to throw away the poor and the middle class for H1B's, then it is to provide an efficient medical community as seen in pretty much every single other 1st world country, 2nd world country, and even many 3rd world countries we've long considered hellholes with poor humanitarian practices.
Life without access to medical in the US is a death sentence applied slowly where if you get sick, well sucks to be you. You've just won a painful path that ultimately leads to complete dependency upon the state, that is in many cases, a prison in your own body with the medical community having given up on your unprofitable ass completely. That's if you're lucky and don't find yourself homeless AND sick at the same time. If that happens, you're full time job is to fend off other homeless people from stealing your shit, fending off law enforcement from finding you and throwing away your shit, finding food to eat with no money, navigate government programs and regulations, find transportation to see a doctor or specialist up to two hours away from you, conform to the aspects of your medical treatment plan, ALL WHILE BEING SICK AND ON THE STREETS. I can't tell you the heartbreak of seeing people like this every week and trying to help them. When I say the medical industry is hellbound, I'm not speaking with hyperbole.
Of course, cue the corporate apologists and worshipers of profit to defend a medical industry based on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @11:35PM
But... think of the poor under-profiting Obamacare insurance corporations. They need a new MBZ or Ferrari every year, and all their house servants need to be paid, and they need even more money to buy politicians so they can hide behind tax loopholes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11 2016, @12:55AM
There is no reason, other than a loss of undeserved profits to some elites, that medical cannot become something paid for by the state.
I'm for universal healthcare, but there are problems associated with the US switching.
There are limited resources and there is basically an unlimited demand. Right now those decisions are made by who has more money - which has a lot of problems but fits with the culture of the US. Switching would mean that those decisions would be made by the state/elected representatives (which definitely aren't winning any popularity contests or known for their competency).
There is also the worry of a short-sighted public/politicians that don't want to invest (enough) in research or have ethical/moral positions that prevent them from supporting research to develop new medicines and treatments.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday September 11 2016, @01:45AM
False, and fear mongering. Cuba has been economically challenged to make an understatement, not to mention lacking a strong geopolitical foothold to do anything. Yet, they've demonstrated a preventative medicine approach in which they are demonstrably more effective dollar to dollar than we are. With a fraction of the resources per person, they're healthier. Too lazy to provide the citation, but you don't need to take my word for it. The WHO speaks highly of their methods and approaches to health care, that health care being self evident as universal. They even help foreigners.
We're not healthy. Our demand is greatly exacerbated by poor health, poor food quality, poor working conditions, poor funding to afford food, etc. We could be a lot healthier than we are, and our obesity percentage should be less than 5% ideally.
Even with our poor state of health, that demand is just going to represent the base demand for adequate levels of preventative health care PLUS that added extra to get us "back on track". If you're saying we have a lack of doctors and medical technicians, then we use them as efficient as we can while subsidizing everyone willing to learn how. Meaning doctors never pay a dime for their education anymore, and neither do nurses or any other person needing that much education to participate. Huge tax benefits, directly to those people and not corporations, can also act as a very enticing reward to choosing that career.
Limited resources? Hmmmm, well that is true as long we are willing to ignore the half trillion dollar gorilla in the room, and its large multi-billion cousins. The military industrial complex is SECONDARY to our health. Only healthy soldiers can defend us, and only healthy and well fed generals can make the decisions on the battle fields. We provide for ALL of our health care, military and civilian, BEFORE we pay for military anything. Those other buttheads? Well they're called Corporate Inversions and Elite Tax Loopholes. Cowering in the back is Rent Seeker and Good Ol' Boys Construction Krews.
Our resources aren't that limited at all. What's limited is the ability for regular citizens to access it.
People are bitching today about Drumpf threatening to fire generals. Why? There is supposed to be a hard line between the military and politics. Meaning, politics are not supposed to influence the decision making and promotions, and indirectly the behavior and policies, of the military. At least all the way up to three star generals, IIRC.
Under no sane conditions would politicians be allowed ANY access greater than the firing or approval of our highest medical officers. Those medical officers forming the Medical Corps, and that means that DOCTORS are in charge of the health care system, and keeping themselves in check. Congress and a civilian review board form the check against it. As directed by We the People, and mandated to them by Congress, they are directly incentivized by patient well being and outcome of care, regardless of costs. I'm not talking about anything esoteric, just a possible implementation whereby the doctors and our well being actually run things, like they do in reasonable and sane countries that demonstrably have better health than we do. Death panels and all the hyperbole are crap. That doesn't happen in other counties implementing systems like these, and there is no reason to believe it would happen with us.... unless we still keep money in the mix.
Get rid of money by getting rid of insurance for malpractice claims. The outcome of poor patient care will be additional patient care required. That means it comes directly out of future medical expenses distributed across us all in the form of taxes. Why do we need to insure that? We disallow all lawsuits because the injured are already afforded any additional care, the doctors responsible will face judgement from their peers under the eyes of civilian review, and any vendors and suppliers will suffer the legal consequences for malfunctioning equipment due to negligence or malfeasance. In the end, every time something happens we do everything required to help the patient, punish those responsible, and learn from it, which I find reasonable. All of this matters since one of the drains against those limited resources is the fact a monitor can cost 10x retail after adding a medical version with attached insurance, band aids can cost $20, Aspirin $5 per pill, breathing air for 3 minutes in the room $19.23, etc.
Get rid of the parasites. If you're not directly involved in patient care, working at a hospital or a clinic, you don't get paid ANYTHING. All health care dollars go towards patient care. Materials, supplies, and technology can still be provided, but they will be negotiated by the doctors and civilian review boards mediated by Congress. Bills are submitted to an organization explicitly audited on a continuing basis by the GAO, with results published publicly.
Bitches like Bresch will be told to go to Hell when she asks to mark up $1 worth of drug in maybe $20 worth of packaging to $600. When Bresch responds back that nobody else has the right to produce it, we respond back with "Eminent Domain Bitch!". It's National Security concerns with the EpiPen, so we're going to take a look at exactly what profit we feel is reasonable and then seize all intellectual property rights opening it up to the public to produce for us........
Medical is life. Profit is merely desired.
Well, I'm sure this will piss off the Christian fundies but no politician will ever have a way to completely overrule all of the doctors and civilian review boards. So quite simply, unless most of the doctors agree along with the civilian review board, nothing would be stopped or underfunded.
Under the type of systems that are out there, Zika would have been funded fully in a much more reasonable time frame and treatments requiring controversial research like stem cells would be free from religious fundamentalism as it is now under Republican control effectively. I always find it ironic that a football star had to go to Germany to get career saving treatments when they typically have access to the absolute best money can provide. That's how much stem cells are the boogey man to Republicans.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday September 11 2016, @05:17AM
I'm totally with you on this, and I admit I did not read the full comment.
While GP is smoking jimsonweed if they think that there's an unlimited demand for medical services (I mean, who goes “I wanna get cancer today!”), the USA does have a backlog of health issues that need to be addressed. I'm wondering how much Obamacare might have eased that.
I do like your proposal about how to handle malpractice. All in all, get the bureaucrats, middlemen, and lawyers out of the fucking way. Then we can look at a reasonable price tag for single payer instead of the WTF trillions of dollars that (paid for) think tank was saying it would cost. Actually thinking back on that, the trillions of dollars thing was a 10 year figure, so that's an additional WTF. Fr33r t3h TRILLIONS! We can't afford single payer! TRILLIONS! Bah.
If a communist “hellhole” like Cuba can fucking do it, why are Americans such pussies about it? I thought America was about how much better than communism it was?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:23AM
Nobody is entitled to free software, but we should all be entitled to
Wait. What?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 11 2016, @02:54AM
Nobody is entitled to free software, but we should all be entitled to equal and free access to medical. Otherwise, it very quickly escalates to where hellbound immoral shitheads like Shkrelli and Bresch can raise barriers to access for desperately needed medicines.
Once again, we see the traditional heavy abuse of the word, "free", flogged in this post like a Roman galley slave. Free isn't free. Somebody has to pay for it. And that is money that could have gone to schools, roads, health care (yes, health care is much more than just "equal and free access"), emergency services, etc. The thing is, you aren't so entitled, because society ultimately can't afford your scheme. We're already seeing ballooning health care costs in every developed world country over this. It's not just the US, the village idiot with this problem.
Further, what's going to happen to all those novel medical treatments that just happen to be out of the price range of the equal and free access because they would bankrupt a country? Stop expensive innovations because they can't be afforded for the general public?