By Don C.\u00a0 Reed\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For all who suffer chronic \u00a0(long-lasting or incurable) disease, you know the financial expense can be enormous.<\/p>\n
Cancer has greatly afflicted my family. My mother died at\u00a0 age 52 from breast cancer; my older and\u00a0 younger sisters passed from leukemia, a form of blood cancer, and my wife of 50 years was taken by pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n
Personally, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Given a\u00a0 choice of\u00a0 treatments,\u00a0 I opted for basically everything: surgery, radiation, hormone injections. The name of the latter escapes me, but the\u00a0 syringe was\u00a0 like a harpoon.<\/p>\n
The costs were staggering\u2013$990,000. Just shy of a million bucks\u2026Fortunately (and to my delight) the insurance covered it all<\/p>\n
But would I \u00a0be healed? \u00a0After the surgery, the doctor told me:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe\u00a0 prostate is shaped like a Mickey Mouse\u00a0 hat. Your cancer has spread to the edge of\u00a0 the\u00a0 \u201cears\u201d, and maybe\u00a0 past\u00a0 that.\u00a0 If it grows too far and gets into the bloodstream, that could be fatal,\u201d he\u00a0 said,\u00a0 \u201cSo let\u2019s hope we got it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
A series of blood tests showed nothing negative;\u00a0 I almost\u00a0 forgot about it.<\/p>\n
But then it was time for another cancer check, a colonoscopy, to seek out colon cancer.<\/p>\n
There was no pain;\u00a0 I just lay on my side and\u00a0 a miniature\u00a0 camera was inserted. The idea was to take samples and remove potentially cancerous \u00a0growths.<\/p>\n
I slept through the procedure, woke up, and\u00a0 went home.<\/p>\n
In the\u00a0 fullness of time I got a letter in the\u00a0 mail.\u00a0 I did not\u00a0 hurry\u00a0 to open it.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0 when I did, the note\u00a0 said:<\/p>\n
\u201cYour biopsies\u2026. show no signs of\u00a0 cancer or infection. No future\u00a0 screening for\u00a0 colon cancer is\u00a0 recommended at this time\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Center for Disease Prevention\u00a0 and Control (CDC),\u00a0 \u201c1.8 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer every year (at a cost of $233 billion)\u201d with more than 600,000 annual fatalities\u2026 (1)<\/p>\n
Cancer\u2019s cost is expected to be more than $240 billion by the year 2030, and it is only one of the chronic conditions plaguing America.<\/p>\n
The total cost of American \u00a0healthcare is roughly five \u00a0trillion dollars. Of that mountain of money, 90% ($4.5 trillion) goes to the treatment of chronic diseases, including cancer. (2)<\/p>\n
I was treated, not cured. Like a partial amputation, portions of\u00a0 my body were removed. I had good treatment, and they caught it in time.<\/p>\n
What America needs is reliable long-range \u00a0research funding, a systematic\u00a0 quest for\u00a0 cure.<\/p>\n
The golden state\u2019s magnificent stem cell program, \u00a0(the California Institute for\u00a0 Regenerative Medicine, or CIRM) has paid for millions of dollars in \u00a0cancer research; the\u00a0 National\u00a0 Institutes of Health (NIH) paid for a great deal more. The cancer \u00a0research portion of the NIH is called the \u00a0National\u00a0 Cancer\u00a0 Institute (NCI ) and it is the largest funder of cancer research in the world.<\/p>\n
How important?<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the past 50 years, every significant medical breakthrough, especially in the treatment of cancer, has been linked to sustained federal investment in research at NIH\u00a0 and NCI. This has contributed to\u2026over 18 million cancer survivors\u2026living in the U.S. today\u2026\u201d (3)<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has proposed enormous budget\u00a0 cuts, selecting roughly 40% of the entire program for elimination.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Read the chilling article, \u201cNIH budget cuts\u00a0 threaten the future of biomedical research\u2026\u201dby Niamh Ordner, Los Angeles Times, July 6, 2025. (4)<\/p>\n
It details\u00a0 how the\u00a0 Trump Administration\u00a0 proposes to eviscerate the NIH.<\/p>\n
However, a judicial decision\u00a0 restored some\u00a0 of the cuts.\u00a0 Two thousand three hundred (2,300) research projects were to be\u00a0 terminated by the Trump\u00a0 Administration; of these, nearly half (nine hundred) were restored, by order of the court. (5)<\/p>\n
Back and forth, the struggle continues. \u00a0It is long and difficult, but we dare not turn away.<\/p>\n
\u00a0And if we keep plugging away, refusing to surrender, \u00a0our time will inevitably come\u2014and\u00a0 the\u00a0 reward may be nothing less than life itself.<\/p>\n