The Chicago Tribune reports: "Scientists visiting Washington recently for a cancer research conference rode buses featuring slogans such as 'scientists on the road to conquering cancer.' But whether they can make that conquest by 2015--as claimed by President Bush's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration--is a question roiling researchers and patients."
Acting FDA commissioner Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach was director of the National Cancer Institute in 2003 when he set a public goal of eliminating death and suffering from cancer by 2015.
The Trib states, "Many prominent researchers say the goal is a gimmick that gives patients false hope and distorts scientific reality. Nobel laureate David Baltimore, president of California Institute of Technology, said most of his colleagues are highly skeptical. 'I don't think people took it seriously because it was such an obviously unattainable goal,' Baltimore said. 'I was surprised, and I know lots of other people were surprised, that he chose a time so near, when we see it as a very difficult problem.' "
President Nixon declared war on cancer 35 years ago. Then it may have been a good way to deflect attention from the war in Vietnam. Could there be a parallel today?
Posted by schwitz at April 11, 2006 07:32 AM | TrackBack