r/BeAmazed • u/MobileAerie9918 • 13d ago

Miscellaneous / Others In 2017, Heather and David Mosher married in a Connecticut hospital, just 18 hours before Heather passed away from terminal breast cancer.

Gallery image

Gallery image

65.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

573 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

24

u/blissfully_happy 13d ago

In the US? We don’t properly fund research.

In fact, we literally just cut 90% of all funding for cancer (and other diseases) because billionaires need more money. Even before this, our funding was shameful in relation to other government expenditures.

Pharmaceutical companies do research, yes, but they are constantly worried about their bottom line. The research isn’t for the betterment of society, it’s to enrich shareholders. If we fund national laboratories and fund national research, the growth is for the betterment of society, not just for shareholders.

Alas, we must always think of the bottom-line. 🙄

10

u/photosendtrain 13d ago

I mean even with all the funding in the past, we're still nowhere near beating ALL forms of cancer. It's just incredibly complex and difficult, which is what I believe the guy above you was trying to say.

1

u/Parking_Relative_911 13d ago

How much of donations contribute to research?

2

u/blissfully_happy 13d ago

How much of donations to what? Private-funded labs? Some, but the majority of research in this country is funded by the federal government. There are a few niche foundations that support researching in one specific thing, but the more we fund public research, the more the results of that funding benefits society as a whole.

1

u/heyhotnumber 13d ago

Practically zero. Most donations go to “awareness campaigns” that don’t fund any research whatsoever.

1

u/rogueman999 13d ago

If you want to look for somebody to blame, look at FDA and regulatory agencies. Current laws are very good for covering one's butt and making sure they can't ever be blamed for anything. Chronic cowardness. We could advance significantly faster if they actually kept an eye on other metrics than the safety of their own jobs. Like overall lives saved.

As for private companies, they'd love a cure for cancer. Much money to be made.