NET cancer and Nervous System cancers
I got an email last night from one of the reporters working on our NET cancer Press Kit. She is working on a story on NET cancer funding from the National institute of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
…ignorance at a level I prefer not to think about…
The email explains the arcane method by which the NIH and NCI calculate what is spent on each type of cancer each year. They do not have a separate category for NET cancer or Carcinoid cancer. Rather, they lump it in with Nervous System Cancers.
The mystery of NET cancer spending
And even then, they maintain no clear list of what was spent on what for general consumption. The Nervous System Cancer amount is based on “summing up the pro-rated dollars on awarded projects determined to be relevant to that research area.”
To say this frustrates me is an understatement.
Nervous System Cancers include brain and spinal cancers, cancers that have little or nothing to do with NET cancers. And while most NET cancers occur in adulthood, many brain cancers happen to young children. To say there is a great deal of overlap between NET cancers and other Nervous System cancers would be an exaggeration.
NET cancer mindlessness
But, politically, it does allow the NIH to claim it spent big money on NET cancer related issues the last two years: $17.5 million in 2011 and nearly $20 million in 2012. That very little of that money was actually spent on NET cancer is of no consequence to them: they see it as the same as nervous system cancers. That there is no relationship between brain cancer or spinal cancer and NET cancer makes no difference–to the bureaucrats running NIH and NCI they are the same thing.
To say there is a great deal of overlap…would be an exaggeration.
To say this frustrates me is an understatement. I’ve spent nearly 2.5 years learning everything I can about NET cancer. I’ve read the books and the scientific papers. In order to understand some of it I have had to do a great deal of background reading on cancer in general. And I will admit my understanding of either subject is far from perfect.
Two entirely different cancers
But I have yet to see a single article anywhere linking brain and spinal cancer–or other nervous system cancers generally–to NET cancer. To say that funding for one is spending for the other strikes me as a display of ignorance at a level I prefer not to think about in those who make the funding decisions in Washington.
They do not have a separate category for NET cancer…
But the information I received last night makes me wonder who is in charge at NCI and NIH–and how they got that position. And it makes me wonder when the last time was anyone truly looked at what the classification system for cancer funding is.
And all of that makes me wonder not just about NET cancer funding from the federal government, but about cancer spending by that government in general.
