[Sandy in Silicon Valley]

Joe - thanks for the link to BCA's Think Before You Pink consumer awareness campaign...

I've got a suggestion for an antidote to the exploitive merchandizing that goes on during the month of October.

I think that it's time that people with breast cancer raise our voices in protest about the insufficiency of government spending on health-related research in general, and breast cancer research in particular.

Experimental research to find more/better treatments, diagnostic tests, and understanding of the complexities of breast cancer has, in the last decade or more, been left mainly to pharmaceutical companies, which have vested interests in the results. So they are motivated to design studies, and publish results, only in order to show that their own products are effective. This is NOT objective, unbiased research, and often, if the results are negative, we, the public, don't get the information - or if we do, it's only after outside testing or data collection has "spilled the beans" (e.g. Vioxx, bone marrow transplants for late stage breast cancer).

Plus, in the rush to get drugs to market & profitability, the FDA's rigorous independence has been compromised. Even Herceptin, if I understand correctly, was rushed to Stage IV breast cancer patients BEFORE it was documented that along with, or swiftly following, Adriamycin chemo tx, the risk of left ventricle heart wall damage was dangerously high, and folks were dying of CHF!

IMO, we need to get back to a place where Principle Investigators are NOT employees of one or another pharmaceutical companies! There's too much incentive to turn "research" into a marketing tool, when one's paycheck is coming from corporations (and indirectly, stockholders) wanting to see a profit, and quickly...

Thanks for the opp'ty to start off my week with a fave rant!

(((hugs)))
Sandy in Silicon Valley