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NEWS > HEALTH > CANCER RATES DECREASE, RESEARCHERS CONCERNED

CANCER RATES DECREASE, RESEARCHERS CONCERNED

April 27 2008

Philadelphia, PA – The last twenty years has seen a dramatic decline in deaths from many types of cancer throughout the United States. While that decline has been a huge benefit to some, a growing sector of the population is seeing the dark side of this development.

The precipitous decline has resulted in an equally significant slide in the funding dedicated to fighting the disease, pushing many researchers and health care professionals into unemployment.

“The reality is competition for those funds is the core reason for the situation we are in now,” said Dr. Michael Wilson of the private research firm IAACCPI. “Our government funds, as well as our private donations, have significantly dried up over the past few years. Everyone and their mother started up a research firm when the money was flowing, cures and treatments started to come about, and now we’re all losing business. If we had been able to limit to research to small groups we would have been able to go on a lot longer.”

Researchers aren’t the only ones feeling the economic pinch of this development, support industries are seeing declines too. Hospitals across the country have had to pare down their cancer wards, putting doctors and nurses out of work. Companies that shared in the boom, namely drug manufacturers, have also seen and dip in profits.

“We still garner a great deal of profitability from drugs used to treat cancers, but the cure rate is very damaging to our bottom line,” said a spokesperson for Pfizer, the second largest drug company in the world. “Our ideal situation is for people to not go into remission, but we are limited in the amount of control we have over that. We do our best in limiting research and dealing with insurance companies, but the reality is the remission rates continue to climb steadily, which is hurting our profitability. We have begun looking into other diseases to meet our projections.”

Support organizations have also begun feeling the pinch. Support groups across the country are seeing fewer and fewer attendees. Magazines such as Cancer and Women & Cancer have seen a sharp decline in their readership.

“It’s getting more and more difficult to keep things going for sure,” said Shirley Hanson of Breast Awareness, one the largest breast cancer groups in the country. “We are slugging through it but it is getting more difficult. We are looking at ways of diversifying our user ship in the future; opening our group up to more types of cancers.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” continued Wilson. “It’s great that people are living longer. But people are losing their jobs here. Not much point in being alive if you lose your job. All I can say is thank God for colon cancer; people are still dying like crazy from that one.”

Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent

NEWS > HEALTH > CANCER RATES DECREASE, RESEARCHERS CONCERNED