Cancer Research And Many Other Diseases example essay topic

Although heart disease is the number one leading cause of death in the United States, killing 948,088 people a year, one would think that it would receive majority governmental funding for disease related research, but it doesn't. The number two leading cause of death in the United States is cancer, killing 529,904 people a year and neither does it receive majority of governmental funding. AIDS ranks 17th among killer diseases, yet it receives far more research dollars than any other disease. It receives $1.8 billion a year in funding, a third of all federal research dollars.

As of 1998, AIDS received a total of $2,400 per patient while heart disease received only $108 per patient (Gene 17). Diabetes, which kills more people annually than AIDS and breast cancer combined, received $28 per patient (Gene 17). So why should AIDS research receive more federal dollars than the sixteen other diseases that claim more lives? Federal dollars for AIDS research must be limited because AIDS research is taking an unreasonable share of funding (Court " eyes 4).

Coleman 2 The American Heart Association reports, cardiovascular diseases have been America's number one killer for more than seventy-five years, nearing one million deaths per year. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, cardiovascular disease deaths are twenty-two times higher than AIDS deaths. Cancer is the number two killer, with the number of deaths thirteen times higher than those from AIDS. But NIH's (National Institute of Health) $1.8 billion in AIDS research is first among diseases. For every $1,000 that NIH spends on medical care, $11.15 is for heart disease, $6.18 for stroke, $3.20 for diabetes, $77.13 for cancer, but $125.87 for HIV / AIDS (Shilts pg. 130-131).

Of the forty-three percent of its budget that NIH spends on disease related research, heart disease receives $903 million (16.5 percent of all disease related research funding); diabetes, $316 million (5.8 percent); pneumonia and influenza, $64 million (1.2 percent); stroke, $127 million (2.3 percent); and HIV / AIDS, $1.8 billion (27.5 percent) (Shilts pg. 130-131). Although some reports say that AIDS is the leading cause of death for males ages 25-44, this is still only 15 percent of the entire population. Overall, AIDS has dropped to the number seventeenth cause of death, which is significant but is still only a small fraction of the deaths caused by America's biggest killer diseases. The annual rate of death in the United States for AIDS patients in 1987 was 59 per 100, yet little more than a Coleman 3 decade later in 1998 this number had plummeted to only 4 per 100 patients. The rate of new AIDS infections likewise dropped substantially, from over 20,000 in 1993 to only 10,000 in 1998 (Clark 15). Since its first diagnosis in January 1981, AIDS has killed approximately 450,000 Americans, while cancer, a far more prevalent disease, kills about 530,000 Americans every year.

Heart disease, the number one killer among diseases, is the cause of almost twice that - averaging one million deaths per year. No rising trend has been seen in statistics of AIDS deaths, supporting the fact that current trends alone are no justification for the current funding imbalance (Gene 18). If the NIH were to base it's funding based on trends, AIDS would certainly not receive the most money because of the decreasing number of people who have become infected with the disease. The 600,000 to 700,000 Americans infected with HIV is below the 1986 Public Health Service estimate of 1 million to 1.5 million (Clark p 15). The NIH's National Cancer Institute reported that new infections have been falling annually since the early 1980's. New cases have been less than the number of deaths each year since 1992.

And the death rate itself is dropping, with the CDC (Center for Disease Control) reporting a 13 percent decline in the first six months of 1996 (Clark p 17). Neither is the fact that AIDS is a transmittable disease a reasonable excuse. Influenza Coleman 4 is considered incomparable with AIDS, yet it causes 20,000 deaths per year. AIDS causes slightly fewer deaths, killing less than 17,000 people per year, according to the CDC. The fact that AIDS is a transmittable disease, does not pose a greater threat than a non-transmittable disease, such as cancer, which kills thirty-three people for every one AIDS fatality.

Unless the amount of AIDS deaths increase drastically, AIDS should not receive more dollars in federal funding than cancer research and many other diseases. The leading infectious cause of death worldwide is not AIDS, but acute respiratory infections. Globally, AIDS kills 2.6 million people a year, yet mere respiratory illnesses claim upwards of 3.5 million per year. Something as simple as diarrhea causes nearly as many deaths as AIDS, at a rate of 2.2 million per year. Approximately 91% of those deaths are born by children under age five (Gene 36.) Prostate cancer accounts for approximately 15 percent of all cancer cases in the United States and 15 percent of male cancer deaths. Yet, on average, only about 5 percent of federal cancer research dollars have been devoted to beat the disease.

AIDS research receives approximately $1.8 billion in federal funding. Breast cancer research will receive nearly $700 million next year. Coleman 5 The United States invests approximately $4,000 to find a cure for each life lost to prostate cancer; more than $14,000 for each life lost to breast cancer, and about $100,000 for each life lost to AIDS. It's not that research for other diseases receives too much funding. Prostate cancer received too little.

Overall, the total cost of treating prostate cancer in the U.S. amounts to several billion dollars per year. Since most men diagnosed with the disease are over age 65 years of age, most of the cost is paid for through Medicare. Just this year, Congress passed the Ominous Appropriations Bill- a bill that will increase the federal budget for AIDS research by seven percent. That's a $688 million increase into AIDS research, which already receives more money than any other disease. Members of Congress have a constitutional duty to ensure that tax dollars are spent properly and to set policy.

The money that funds NIH comes not just from the 600,000 to 700,000 people afflicted with HIV / AIDS, but also from the many millions more who must deal with other diseases (Is took 1). A slogan making the rounds on signs and bumper stickers reads, "The government has blood on its hands: One AIDS death every half hour". Assuming that the government has a duty to fund the research of diseases, why doesn't it have blood on its hands for the twenty-seven cancer deaths every half hour or for the forty- Coleman 6 four heart disease deaths (Crichton 72)? Maybe the government should take another look.