The Squeaky Wheel Syndrome

...We ought to keep a large number of AIDS researchers plying away...

...Heoverwhelmingly on AK Until took tobacco company contributions for six years after his sister's death...

...It was wiped out by a vaccination, the first disease ever to be so prevented...

...Greg Ganske (R-Iowa) said dur"It is a zero sum game," said Dr...

...Before 1998 there is no record of Gore's supporting increased cancer research...

...Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual awards ceremony, the vice president pledged not only "to stop anti-gay hate crime" and "end workplace discrimination" against homosexuals, but to raise AIDS funding further...

...And the pursuit of public funding has inevitably led to conflict...

...In 1992 the pursued a two-pronged strategy...

...Seemingly every group of disease sufferers now employs professional lobbyists...

...According to Vanessa Blum in the Chicago Tribune: "Many [marchers] complained of feeling overshadowed by the disproportionate attention given to breast cancer...

...Cancer received less than $5,000 and heart disease less than $2,000...

...Nevertheless, they made major decisions to put huge portions of research and development funding into AIDS based on improper information," he said...

...What does this disease cost society, particularly through Medicaid and Medicare...

...Ill f / / / / \ I 7~ / / I / // // // / t / / / / j/ / / / I / / .-/ / / / ,f f • No, there's no cancer epidemic and the demonstrators to their credit didn't claim there was...

...young person must will-To pay for more spending "I do have significant concerns about whether Congress has ingly study for many years...

...And they were right: No cure ever was found for smallpox...

...AIDS has prompted a general de-emphasis of other medical problems," I wrote in these pages almost a decade ago ("The Incredible Shrinking AIDS Epidemic," TAS, May1989...

...September's cancer rally appeared to be a way of accusing Congress of caving in to the earlier accusers...

...Following a trend established in the late 1980's, last year's National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget allocated about $ 7o,000 for each AIDS death in 1997...

...What we want is for them (and Congress) to represent us—all of us, not just those who scream the loudest, sew the biggest quilts, or chain themselves to fences...

...December r 9 98 • The American Spectator This is the background image for an unknown creator of an OCR page with image plus hidden text...

...According to the IOM report, in 1993 NCI "allocations for breast cancer research increased by $5 3 million, cervical cancer research funding increased by $10 million, ovarian cancer research funding increased by $6 million...

...There is no equivalent for cancer patients...

...Call 1-800-575-1566 to find out what your stock broker doesn't want you to know...

...To prove this they compared research allocations for women's diseases to the overall medical research budget...

...Clinton and Gore made it clear they were moved, and this is easy to believe...

...In the for leukemia, non-Hodgkins increased and I'm not willing to engage in 'Disease Wars,'" same documentary, Rep...

...Most of us couldn't care less if Clinton or Gore feel our pain...

...MIB Financial A full service, asset growth and protection company 1-800-575-1566 We have something with STOCK MARKET RETURNS— without STOCK MARKET RISKS...

...Other companies catering to women, such as Revlon, joined the crusade...

...Did you know that if your funds are in the stock market, your principle is at risk...

...It's not just a matter of funds they will be depicted as but of researchers, whose numbers cannot be raised merely by legislative fiat...

...Slicing Up the Pie There's no simple formula for how research money should be allocated, but chief among the considerations should be: • How many people have the disease...

...Any time there's an increase in cut basic research funding promising areas of research are...

...The protesters were after the group they could influence most, the government...

...But if a rapidly growing epidemic was an excuse for a rapidly growing budget, shouldn't a rapidly shrinking epidemic prompt reallocation of funds...

...By 1989, this had fallen to about 2 5 percent and there it remains...

...But since nobody seems to know this, the 1999 estimated NIH budget allocates $188 million for pediatric AIDS: over $38o,000 a case...

...We will never know their exact numbers...

...Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) sponsored the same legislation in the Senate...

...ably fit for combat in sixteen weeks, but to become a scientist a mention that [these other Are you like most people...

...Worse than unseemly, these "disease wars" are unscientific...

...Yet when he ran cancer, Gore has been a onefor president in 1988, Gore boasted to North Carolina farmers that disease politician, focused "throughout most of my life, I raised tobacco...

...They bled cancer to feed AIDS," complained one...

...Fully Secured and 21% Fixed Returns on an 18-month program...

...One reason AIDS activists gave for overspending on their disease was that it was an epidemic with sharply rising numbers...

...Zack Hall, direcon AIDS and breast cancer, ing an oversight hearing held by the House authorization subtor of the Institute of Neucommittee in September 1 997 . "I am concerned that these rological Disorders and the National Cancer Institute lobbying efforts are turning the floor of Congress into a scien-Stroke at NIH, in a recent tific peer review panel," and "whether members of Congress have the scientific expertise to determine where the most PBS documentary...

...While breast cancer activists couldn't pretend that all—men and women alike—were at equal risk of getting the disease, they started the myth that research spending was almost entirely male-oriented...

...They have no interest in the equitable spending of tax money for medical research...

...Gore's Gaffes and Manipulation In his keynote address to the rally, the vice president committed a typical Gore gaffe...

...Newsweek reported that in late October of this year Gore worked "behind the scenes to nail down budget victories that will help him with key Democratic constituencies in 2000," including more support for AIDS research...

...Child AIDS cases fell from 671 to 473, or about one live birth per 24,000...

...In 1992, for example, the press referred to a breast cancer epidemic thirtyfive times as often as to a prostate cancer epidemic, even though the latter was killing almost as many people, and spreading much more quickly...

...One woman told the Associated Press: "Lung cancer is the biggest killer of women...

...The media insistently attributed this progress to medical research, specifically drug therapies...

...Clinton snapped back: "Since I've become president, we're spending ten times as much per fatality on people with AIDS as people with breast cancer or prostate cancer...

...Shouldn't it be of some import that AIDS now kills about as many persons in a year as cancer kills every twelve days...

...The effects on research spending were inevitable...

...Yes, STOCK MARKET RETURNS without STOCK MARKET RISKS...

...The rally, which called for more attention and money to be directed to cancer, was the brainchild of a small but eclectic group that includes Larry King, Sam Donaldson, and H. Norman Schwarzkopf...

...December 19 9 8 • The American Spectator This is the background image for an unknown creator of an OCR page with image plus hidden text...

...The president and vice president are no allies of cancer sufferers or their loved ones...

...He is clearly aware of it, though...

...f .° \ \ N ,, \ __ \ \ \ \ \ \ ~. \ X \ x \\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ -. x...

...published in the medical newspaper the Scientist, two young researchers wrote of the danger of "seduction" by AIDS research money: "Unfortunately, many other young scientists may have no choice but to go into the field that offers the most easily obtained funding...

...Had they compared female disease funding to male disease funding, they would have shown female disease research coming out well ahead...

...Most newspapers worked the word "drugs" into their headlines...

...The Rev...

...Cases and deaths have actually declined a bit in recent years...

...the media must demand proof of their assertions...

...A press release of September lo, 1998 entitled "National Task Force Addresses Growing HIV/AIDS Rate in Rural America —Kicks Off Rural Health AIDS Conference," declared that "AIDS cases increased by 8o percent between 1991 and 1995 in rural areas compared to a 47 percent increase in urban areas, according to the CDC...

...In a press release just after the cancer rally, the White House made it sound as if Clinton were twisting Congress's arm for more cancer funding: "Today, the President and Vice President called on Congress to pass the Administration's historic fiveyear, 65-percent increase in cancer research at the National Institutes of Health...

...recently he seemed hardly Until quite recently, Gore seems to have been aware of cancer...

...The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the NIH branch responsible for almost all cancer research and much AIDS research...

...Fur retailers, seeking to ward off attacks from animal rights activists, widely advertised their contributions to breast cancer research...

...nervous about the stock market...

...I.R.A...

...But they will die nonetheless...

...A better title for the The American Spectator • D e c e m b e r z 9 9 8 25 This is the background image for an unknown creator of an OCR page with image plus hidden text...

...Male cases dropped, female cases dropped, cases attributed to heterosexual transmission dropped not only in absolute numbers but as a percentage of all new AIDS cases...

...So why should we care...

...What would a decline in the stock market do to your stocks, mutual funds and retirement accounts...

...AIDS gets io percent of all NIH pediatric spending...

...The figures were a bit off, but showed that he knew full well he had given AIDS most favored disease status...

...This was far from the first time that Gore had used cancer to score points...

...24 December i998 • The American Spectator i:2...

...Some people still say it is impossible to find a cure for cancer," he boomed...

...says Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coali-Ernest Istook (R-Okla...

...played politics with the NIH budget and micromanaged difficult scientific questions," Rep...

...Twenty-nine patient advocacy groups or associations submitted written or oral testimony to the IOM as it worked on its report...

...What would you say to: Your Principal is...

...frankly a fear among many members of Congress that for public information and Resources will always be limited...

...It went unsaid that both the House and Senate had proposed much higher figures...

...one area of research that Some say the answer is simply to boost all federal disease research funding...

...The bottom line of the IOM report is that tax dollars are spent disproportionately on a chosen few illnesses, not according to any medical criterion, but in response to the loudest cries of J'Accuse...

...What's missing here...

...Knowing that the media will not call their bluff, AIDS activists continue twisting data...

...Aside from sheer incidence and death rates, how much suffering does the disease cause...

...They are political animals through and through...

...and as with AIDS, the media again responded eagerly...

...cases in 1995 to 8 percent in 1997...

...What do they and press allies say now, with the number of cases falling and the death rate dropping through the basement floor...

...He called hardly aware of cancer at all...

...Qualified With No Market Risk...

...Because these people came to fight a disease to which virtually all of us have lost friends and relatives, and to which we have at least a one-in-five chance of dying ourselves...

...As Gore wrote in a Washington Post op-ed on October 18: "For too long, cancer patients, their families and their care givers have had to fight cancer without the resources necessary to win the war...

...mittees were funded...

...That these two positions epidemic—although the latter are somewhat contradictory seemed to bother no was killing almost as many and one, and the strategy won firm backing from the federal health bureaucracy, spreading much more quickly...

...NIH allocations for the disease now outnumber those for prostate cancer by about five times per case and four times per death...

...And as the being one of many horriand brain, as well as IOM report notes, no increase can ever "be large enough to ble diseases and there is meet every need or fund every promising lead...

...Breast cancer became a cause celebre like AIDS...

...and are their numbers increasing, decreasing, or holding steady...

...Its largely unspoken impetus was frustration over politicians' inability to say "no" to the powerful AIDS and breast cancer lobbies...

...including Reagan's Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who talked of a "heterosexual AIDS explosion," and Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who told Congress in 1 993 that we might not have "any Americans left unless we're prepared to confront the crisis of AIDS...

...Only the most recent and hence most important years, 1996 and 1997 . They were omitted because rural AIDS cases fell from 8.8 percent of all U.S...

...I went around to drug companies in the late 1 980's and early 1990's," says Joel Hay, chairman of the department of pharmaceutical economics at UCLA, "and they were absolutely convinced that AIDS was soon going to account for a huge portion of health care expenditures...

...What is the fatality rate of the disease...

...New AIDS cases fell 12 diseases] afflict far, far more Americans and cost this country far, far more percent in 1997, yet the next than AIDS does [and therefore] deserve a larger year AIDS activists announced share of the limited money available...

...Under Clinton, AIDS spending went up at almost twice the rate of cancer spending...

...You can draft an unwilling civilian and have him passpeople lacking in compassion if they dare to chemopmention...

...they've surely speeded up the decline...

...That's what I predicted in 1989, and that is exactly what has happened...

...The report (available at www.cdc.gov/nchstp/ hiv_aids/stats/hasrlink.htm) shows that new AIDS cases fell 12 percent from 68,8o8 in 1996 to 60,634 in 1997...

...Breast cancer activists openly copied the AIDS campaign, replacing the word "homophobe" with "misogynist," and the red ribbon with a pink one...

...In October the CDC announced that, in a single year, the disease getting the most money per victim fell from America's eighth leading killer to its fourteenth...

...Will research on this disease likely lead to developments useful against others...

...Aside from joining his wife in a yearly fundraishimself a tobacco farmer ing run against breast cancer, he has been a one-disease politician, focused In 1988, and took tobacco overwhelmingly on AIDS...

...Since 1993 , the disparity has only widened...

...I think all biomedical research should be we have, it must go down in other areas...

...The Times noted: "The request has a big political dimension...

...If this happens, other areas of research important to the welfare of the U.S...

...Just a year ago Shalala told a reporter that "we have more kids infected," though the latest data showed AIDS cases among children falling sharply...

...12% Fixed Returns on a 12-month program...

...But it was the appearances of the president and vice president that attracted most attention-and belied the Clinton administration's irresponsible record on the matter...

...Choices must be made and priorities must be set...

...Last year at the National company money until 1990...

...What they ignored is that in 1988, data was presented at that year's international AIDS conference indicating that HIV among homosexuals in major cities had peaked in the early 1980's...

...To pay for these increases and for the increase in AIDS spending, "NCI had to cut basic research funding for leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and cancers of the colon, bladder, kidney, and brain, as well as for public information and chemoprevention...

...The media did their part as well, rarely challenging the AIDS doomsayers...

...Activists and the media report might have been "The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease...

...Like their AIDS counterparts, breast cancer activists also grossly inflated a woman's odds of getting the disease...

...During his speech at a gay rights dinner in November of 1997, a heckler shouted: "People with AIDS are dying...

...A few weeks earlier, the CDC released its 1997 statistics showing exactly the opposite...

...Clinton-Gore Feel Their Pain The marchers on the Mall in September didn't come to criticize private industry—pharmaceutical companies largely bankrolled their demonstration...

...How much bang can we get for the buck (e.g., spending $1 billion to save 10,000 lives versus perhaps $2 billion to save i,000 lives...

...Yet their cynicism is hard to ignore...

...It doesso not on any medicalcriterion, but in responseto the loudestcries of d'Acc#se...

...The blunt fact is that people will die of these other diseases because of the overemphasis on AIDS...

...MICHAELFUMENTO,a science and health journalist, is author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS (Regnery...

...Howto Make MoneyandinfluencePeople That spending is disparately focused on AIDS is no longer disputed, and was documented earlier this year in "Scientific Opportunities and Public Needs," a report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a branch of the highly reputed, non-governmental National Academy of Sciences...

...Probably this applied to the population as a whole by 1985...

...During the 1970's, between 43 percent and 6o percent of percent of its pediatric budget cancer grant applications approved by review comon the disease...

...Just last July, an article in USA Today began this way: "Alarmed at the spread of AIDS nationwide, AIDS advocates on Monday demanded millions for HIV prevention and decried the nation's 'paralyzed' prevention efforts...

...A hundred years ago, people said exactly the same thing about smallpox...

...Prostate cancer in 1 996 killed 41,400 Americans, near breast cancer's toll of 44,560 and more than AIDS's 38,780...

...These are but a few factors we must consider...

...a "growing HIV/AIDS rate," Some Things citing only statistics through Never Change Ten years ago AIDS research had already 1985...

...Meanwhile, cancer is the leading cause of non-accidental death in children under the age of 15, with about 9,000 pediatric cases annually...

...This group didn't even claim to have gathered a million persons, only 15o,ooo...

...Yet the disease continues to kill more than half a million Americans annually, and given the recent advances against heart disease, cancer may soon become our leading cause of death...

...This came through in news accounts...

...Child AIDS cases fell absorbed so much funding that the NCI's ability to pay for promising new from 671 to 473, yet in 1888 cancer research had fallen to its lowest level in NM will probably spend 10 two decades...

...Federal health officials said that the Administration and Vice President Al Gore in particular were eager to address the concerns of advocacy groups that focus on AIDS and gay rights...

...First, they claimed that anyone who press referred to a breast denied them the research money they demanded cancer epidemic 35 times as was a homophobe...

...The most famous was his speech to the 1996 The American Spectator • December 1 9 9 8 Democratic National Aside from Joining Tipper In Convention, built around his sister's agonizing death from lung cancer, pre-a yearly run against breast sumably due to smoking, in 1984...

...Here, too, apocalyptic thinking about AIDS prevails...

...Second, they insisted that AIDS was not just a gay often as to a prostate cancer disease but "an equal opportunity destroyer...

...exaggerate the threat from The squeaking began with AIDS activists, who certain diseases...

...It's only fitting, then, that although they can't be blamed for the politicization of research funding, its institutionalization will be their legacy...

...NIH is the largest government provider of research grants, but private industry, especially the pharmaceutical industry, spends more...

...1" 1"4 a= 1 The federal government spends tax dollars disproportionately on a chosen few ilinessesmnotabiy AiDS and breast cancermwhiie underspendingon biggerkillers...

...Spread...

...It's bigger than breast and ovarian cancer combined...

...Disease Wars The logical consequences of politicizing disease research are obvious on Capitol Hill...

...Now activistsare pittedagainst each other in an ongoingordeal called "Disease Wars," his past September yet another specialinterest group marched on the Mall in Washington, D.C...

...With a ten-year lag time from infection to full-blown AIDS, we could have expected AIDS diagnoses to peak by 1995, and deaths to peak shortly thereafter...

...Pat Schroeder, the militant Colorado feminist and fervent anti-militarist, killed two birds with one budget by diverting hundreds of millions of dollars from defense appropriations to breast cancer research...

...I tried to set them straight...

...As with AIDS, the breast cancer strategy worked brilliantly...

...And so they have...

...lymphoma, and cancers tion...

...He wasn't apologizing, but merely trotting out a major slogan for his next political campaign...

...Amy Argetsinger and Craig Whitlock reported in the Washington Post: "Some speakers took pains to emphasize the sheer number of people struck by cancer each year— a far higher number than those killed by arguably more celebrated causes, such as AIDS or gun violence...

...States began soliciting donations to the cause on income tax forms...

...S.E.P...

...public will be neglected for years to come...

...The message we give to Congress year after year is the pie said, "The media preshas to be bigger...

...Jesse Jackson counted the TV cameras and decided to drop in...

...But for that, who knows where we'd be on cancer or Alzheimer's or diabetes...

...The American Spectator • December 1998 This is the background image for an unknown creator of an OCR page with image plus hidden text...

...How many years of lost life and how much lost productivity does the disease cause...

...Two top NCI doctors left the agency in 1988, partly in frustration over this drop...

...The pie is in fact getting bigger, but Congress is still slicing sures and influences depict AIDS as the horriof the colon, bladder, kidney, it up unfairly, ignoring objective standards for grant-giving ble disease as opposed to such as mortality rates and numbers of sufferers...

...Maturity dates may vary...

...Last December the New York Times reported that Clinton and Gore were seeking a 3 5-percent spending increase for "AIDS drug-assistance programs...

...Clinton boasted that he'd asked Congress to increase the NIH cancer budget by 65 percent, but didn't mention his prime role in the cancer-AIDS research funding disparity...

...Cancer activists are pitted against AIDS activists, prostate cancer activists against breast cancer activists, and so on...

...And so they have been...

...Of course the wonderful new medicines have played a part...

...The president lost his mother to cancer, and the vice president a sister...

...Yet the first step is to stop rewarding those who artificially make their wheels squeak...

...In 1992, former Rep...

...If Shalala said every last person in the country was threatened, who were journalists to report otherwise...

...In an editorial entitled "Are We Spending Too Much on AIDS...