[Hopeful]

Interesting concept. Excerpts that struck me from the white paper:

"As we learn more about breast cancer subtypes, evidence grows that many drugs benefit a small group of women, yet they are given to all. Chemotherapy drugs are often added to treatment regimens without a great deal of evidence of benefit. When longer-term evidence indicates benefit is limited and harm exists, existing treatments are rarely removed from regimens, regardless of the strength of evidence against their use. For example, many women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer of different subtypes continue to receive anthracyclines, though evidence shows that the drugs may only provide incremental benefit to a small group of patients, and could be replaced with a less toxic substitute."

"Breast cancer research over the decades has produced elegant science and thousands of research papers, but little that has had a big impact on patients or those at risk. It is possible for researchers to gain significant acclaim for their work, and to be judged highly successful by the scientific world's measurement, without having helped a single patient. The system rewards safe ideas and discourages innovative ones that might lead to the big breakthroughs in prevention and treatment. The infrastructure of breast cancer research is to keep things moving along as they have been and to reward people for doing safe, low-impact work. These obstacles are not scientific challenges but rather organizational and systemic dysfunctions. These are problems with solutions."

Hopeful