AlexO'Meara.com » gina kolata http://www.alexomeara.com Author of Chasing Medical Miracles: The Promise and Perils of Clinical Trials Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:36:37 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Cancer research driven by grant system and safe thinking – June 29, 2009 http://www.alexomeara.com/2009/06/cancer-research-driven-by-grant-system-and-safe-thinking-june-29-2009/ http://www.alexomeara.com/2009/06/cancer-research-driven-by-grant-system-and-safe-thinking-june-29-2009/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:32:47 +0000 Alex http://www.alexomeara.com/?p=254 An excellent article in the New York Times by the always astute and well-informed medical and health writer Gina Kolata sheds light on how cancer research is driven by a grant system that rewards cautious thinking more than promoting bold ideas of how to cure and treat cancer. The article is a nice look at a portion of the “medical industrial complex” that appears to be a self-sustaining enterprise and an embedded part of how health care and research are conducted in the United States.

In a related story also in the New York Times, cancer researchers in Australia have developed a drug that is effective in animal tests  at attacking cancer cells. It’s a long way to see if the new approach has validity in human subjects, but it is nice to see progress being made in imaginative ways.

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