VANCOUVER, CANADA (BNO NEWS) – Canadian scientists on Wednesday said they have achieved an unprecedented breakthrough in breast cancer research, opening new doors to new breast cancer treatment targets and therapies.
For the first time ever, scientists at the B.C. Cancer Agency were able to decode all of the three billion letters in the DNA sequence of a metastatic lobular breast cancer tumor, a type of breast cancer which accounts for about 10 percent of all breast cancer cases. The scientists were able to find all the mutations, or “spelling” mistakes that caused the cancer to spread further.
The results of the study will be published on Thursday as the cover story in the prestigious international science journal “Nature.” It helps unlock the secrets of how cancer begins and spreads, the agency said, thus pointing the way to the development of new breast cancer treatment targets and therapies.
Canadian researchers ranked first in the world when the study’s authors looked at the number of top scientific articles published relative to the amount of money spent on research. Canadian researchers ranked second only to the U.S, and well ahead of Western Europe, when it came to the number of articles published relative to the size of the population.
“This shows that Canadian researchers are very productive, even when compared with the much larger research community in the U.S.” says Dr. Michael Wosnick, executive director of the National Cancer Institute of Canada. “We may not always have the budgets our colleagues in other countries have, but we have developed a knack for getting the biggest bang for our research buck. Canadians should be exceedingly proud of the stellar quality and the cost-effectiveness of the research they fund. It’s making a difference.”
The study looked at articles published between 1995 and 2002 in the world’s top 50 biomedical journals – including journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study’s authors say that Canadian researchers are a “surprisingly positive example” of an efficient and effective research community.
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Shame, on you America. Read On.
In the world of cancer charities and government funding, breast cancer is queen. The top four breast cancer charities take in a combined annual revenue of roughly $256 million according to their tax returns. The largest breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had a total revenue of $161,974,711 for the year ending March 31, 2007 according to its tax return. [This does not reflect the amount coming in the 'side' doors such as stock in GE, Government Support, etc.,]
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) devoted $572.4 million researching breast cancer in 2007. Other National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for breast cancer boosted the total spent on the disease to $705 million. Plus, the Department of Defense operates its own breast cancer research outfit at a cost of another $138 million in fiscal 2008.
Downside to generous funding
Breast cancer is so generously funded partly because advocacy groups have powerful lobbying arms. Last year, Komen spent $724,073 lobbying legislators, almost double the amount from 2004, its tax returns show, while the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) spent $432,680 during 2006.
“Disease advocacy has become a well-recognized component of the funding landscape,” explains University of Pennsylvania bioethicist and msnbc.com contributor Art Caplan, “and breast cancer is the modern marvel everyone wants to emulate.”
Interactive
Fact file: Breast cancer
Learn the basics about the disease, from risk factors to symptoms and more.
msnbc.com
Not all breast cancer organizations agree. “I argue we do not need more money for breast cancer research,” says Barbara Brenner, a breast cancer survivor and the executive director of Breast Cancer Action (BCA), a San Francisco-based activist organization which has launched a Web site called thinkbeforeyoupink.org. Brenner argues that nobody knows just what all the money has purchased.
‘Pink washing’
Making a correlation between the amount of money spent and medical advances made is virtually impossible, especially for cancer, experts say. The rate of breast cancer incidence has been rising over the decades, probably due to better detection, and the rate of breast cancer death has been slowly dropping. There is often great dispute about why, but most scientists agree it is likely a combination of new drugs, especially estrogen blockers like tamoxifen, and early detection. Since breast cancer, like many cancers, is really a constellation of different processes, there is not likely to be any such thing as “a cure.”
With no cure in sight despite billions spent on research, many activists like Brenner want more attention paid to breast cancer prevention — especially possible environmental factors — and closing the gap in treatment between social and racial groups. They also advocate more rigorous science backing up the supposed benefits of mammograms and new drugs under consideration for approval.By Brian Alexander
updated 8:43 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 22, 2008
Filed under: Uncategorized
