Posted on 04/15/2025 11:35:40 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Sustained research funding is essential to progress
I don't usually talk about my cancer diagnosis. But as a physician-scientist who survived leukemia at 18 years old and now cares for people facing their own cancer diagnoses, I feel compelled to share my story -- because it speaks directly to what's at stake in medicine today.
The clinical trial that saved my life wouldn't have existed without robust investment in biomedical research. And as debates over federal research funding continue, I think about whether future patients will have access to the same life-saving opportunities I did.
It was the summer of 2007. I had just graduated from high school and was getting ready to start college when I began experiencing vague flu-like symptoms -- low-grade fevers, fatigue, nothing too alarming. My doctor ordered routine bloodwork, mostly out of caution. That same evening, I was admitted to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The diagnosis: acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and aggressive blood cancer that affects approximately eight in a million childrenopens in a new tab or window in the U.S. each year.
I was terrified. But I was also incredibly lucky.
Because I was treated at a major academic center, I had access to a clinical trial testing an experimental therapy -- gemtuzumab ozogamicin, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), given in combination with standard chemotherapy for pediatric AML. The trialopens in a new tab or window was led by the Children's Oncology Group and funded by the National Cancer Instituteopens in a new tab or window through its National Clinical Trials Network.
That treatment saved my life.
I started college a year later with a new sense of purpose. I wanted to become an oncologist -- to join the very system that had given me a second chance. Over the past two decades, that goal has shaped my life: medical school, a PhD in cancer biology, residency in internal medicine, and now subspecialty training in hematology and oncology.
Today, I sit across from patients facing the same fear I once did. I counsel them about treatments that exist only because of long-term investment in biomedical research. And I worry that we're taking that system for granted.
Research doesn't happen by accident. Clinical trials don't appear overnight. Every treatment we use at the bedside starts with years -- often decades -- of basic science, drug development, trial design, and infrastructure. That system depends on funding -- and right now, that funding is under threat.
Federal investment in the NIH and FDA -- the cornerstones of American biomedical research -- is facing increasing uncertainty. Yet, the return on that investment has been extraordinary: new therapies, better diagnostics, and improved patient outcomes across virtually every field of medicine.
When I was treated, gemtuzumab ozogamicin was the first FDA-approved ADC. Today, more than a dozen ADCs are approved for various cancers, with many more in development. That kind of progress doesn't happen without sustained research funding.
But most people -- understandably -- only see the final product: the chemotherapy infusion, the pill bottle, the scan result. They don't see the decades of science behind it.
That's why those of us who have lived through the system -- as patients, physicians, and researchers -- need to speak up.
We need to remind policymakers and the public that biomedical research isn't just a noble idea. It's life-saving infrastructure. It's as essential to patient care as any hospital or medication.
When I sit with a newly diagnosed patient today, I think often about what terrified the 18-year-old version of myself. I think about the clinical trial that saved me. And I wonder: Will we continue to invest in science so that the next patient has the same chance I did?
I hope so. But hope isn't enough. It takes action, investment, and advocacy.
Biomedical research saved my life. Now it's up to all of us -- clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and patients -- to make sure it can save many more.
Robert L. Dilley, MD, PhD,opens in a new tab or window is a clinical fellow in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Mass General Brigham in Boston.
Federal investment in the NIH and FDA — the cornerstones of American biomedical research — is facing increasing uncertainty.
They keep repeating that. But actual research is under no threat. But massive amounts of money were wasted in biowarfare, the faggotry, racial, and tranny aspect of everything. Researching guns as a “disease”. The medical research of the social justice aspects of BLM. The medical effects of an interstate cutting communities in half.
The well-being of prostitutes and porn stars. etc etc ad nauseum.
THAT waste makes it less likely that those lifesaving drugs will be invented.
This guy needs to change his thinking and get on the team.
Isn’t there a right to try in law?
Shouldn’t this be seen as an important clinical step for study?
Volition is crucial imo.
Stop pretending that behavior issues have anything to do with medicine and you will eliminate a huge amount of the stupid waste.
Leukemia took my best friend when I was 10 and my Dad 13 years ago.
‘Biomedical research saved my life’
So shut up, corrupt big pharma drone. Go to hell with your Fauci “research”.
“ Thalidomide. (I realize morning sickness is not as serious as leukemia.”
However, the children of the mothers who took this med may not feel the same way. Just horrific what that med did.
I’m so sorry . I’m an AML survivor and it’s a horrific , fast moving cancer.
Never heard about this type of leukemia till I got it.
My mom had Hodgkin’s and non Hodgkin’s lymphoma (the latter took her 19 years after her first occurrence. Many people confuse lymphoma & leukemia.
Your comment is non-sequitur vis-a-vis article content. A bit odd.
Concerning the article:
“ Federal investment in the NIH and FDA — the cornerstones of American biomedical research — is facing increasing uncertainty.”
What’s happening I think and hope is the opposite.
Funding will go to real research and not DEI related crap that has been sucking up NIH and HHS funds that should go to actual basic science and medical research.
Not paying salaries of administrators and pseudo scientists who get well paid to crank out endless surveys on “underserved communities” and myriad other non-scientific nonsense.
Billy was a good kid.
Leukemia was sure death back then.
Late 60s
It took a while.
Dad beat leukemia once, but it came back and got him.
I don’t think the public cares so much about the $$$ as they do about the ethics that guided earlier medical practitioners that I grew up with. Right now we have people who took the mRNA genetic treatment (aka, clot shot) that creates the deadly ‘spikes’ that kills people, sooner than later. The ‘testing’ documentation mentions the possibility of shedding by skin cells, but didn’t pursue it because the clot-shot was supposed to stay in one spot, and stop manufacturing the spikes that kill the ‘virus’.
It doesn’t. But it likely sheds from skin cells as warned, then there are fluids shared among the major organs, as they get infected. And waste ejected. One little skin cell at a time. Inevitable depopulation?
I was on a clinical trial (not cancer) and lost my colon.
It took a whistleblower to bring a decade of fraudulent work to light. Duke is not alone, and better review is needed to police our money in real time.
I work in healthcare in a blue state, and I got an anger inducing global email from our top executive today on this very subject that was heavily political, didn’t mention Trump by name, but the derogatory verbiage was worded in such a way that it was unmistakable.
I would never send emails like this to people who worked for me, but they seem to have no problem doing so. It is extremely disrespectful in my opinion.
Very interesting. I bet there’s a lot of that going on. Thankfully not at my company where I work, I’ve been fortunate with that at least!
I have no problem with Fedgov money going to good research but I do have a problem with that money being wasted, misappropriated, and granted to garbage science.
‘I have no problem with Fedgov money going to good research ‘
I don’t know the solution to it apart from tearing all it down, but what I know is NOT to trust any of such ‘research’, ranging from climate to psychology, including epidemiology, even immunology (see the vaxx disaster), preclinical bioscience, nutrition, toxicology and too many other irreproducible research.
A lot has changed since the 60’s indeed.
Very sad.
You think the children of thalidomide think that morning sickness was a legitimate reason for their condition? I doubt that.
After reading the drug name, I kind of got side tracked thinking about the terrible deformities caused by that drug.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.