A Confession

I have a confession to make, in this politically charged time.

I am one of the many, many Americans supported by public tax dollars.

Your money pays my rent, buys my groceries and occasionally beer, and covers my electric bill.

I'm not on welfare. What I am on is the stipend provided to graduate students in the bench sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) that comes out of federal funds, usually via the NIH or the NSF. It's not a comfortable living--this week, for example, I worked about seventy hours, for which I received approximately $6.50 an hour after taxes.

What do I do in return for this money? I am working on prostate cancer--specifically, a way to prevent some men from getting prostate cancer. I think few people would argue that this is something that ought not to be done, and yet, many wish that funding for scientific research should come entirely from the private sector.

I disagree. (Obviously. I like my paycheck, as tiny as it is.) Although it's not my place to tell anyone how to spend their money, or what to think, federal funding allows important research to take place. Industry has a very short-term focus on research, and a considerable bias towards marketability. And while there are treatments for prostate cancer, and options, and it's not necessarily a death sentence, the work that I do--preventing its occurrence at all--would not be happening, if all research were privately funded.

Let me explain why. Prostate cancer, strictly speaking, shouldn't even be on the radar. Few men get it. Fewer still die from it. The treatments we have (radiation, prostatectomy, chemotherapy) are "good enough" for the medical establishment to feel comfortable. Few people are walking, running, or swimming for a cure for prostate cancer. And yet, here I am. Doing work that most doctors would deem unnecessary.

Prostate cancer wasn't really on my radar, either, to be honest. My project was just a cool project that happened to have implications for prostate cancer. And as I read more, I realized that prostatectomies are incredibly invasive, and that there are serious implications to the surgery. Implications like incontinence, and impotence. Radiation and chemo are difficult treatments for everyone, and wouldn't it be nice if we could give a shot, like for cervical cancer, that would target an at-risk population and render them less...risked?

This is what your tax dollars do. This is what SCIENCE does. We push forward where others would hold still. And yes, sometimes we get it wrong. But we get a lot more right.

When it comes to politics, there are a few issues that are near and dear to my heart, and this is one that I believe never got mentioned in either convention. Spending on research has failed to keep up with inflation. It's harder and harder for people like me to get funding--not even to pay rent, but to buy things we need for our jobs. Incubators for cells. Cleaning supplies. Etc. So when you think about governmental spending, and you take a look at what comes out of your paycheck, think about people like me, as well as people on welfare. And think about your health, and the health of the people you love.

My grandmother is dying of pancreatic cancer, a disease for which there aren't even decent treatment options, a disease where the most radical possible treatment will get you perhaps an additional six months, six months you'd spend on insulin, with nausea, vomiting, and bleeding from the chemo and radiation. They are not a six months I would offer anyone. And yet, that's our best option. Wouldn't it be nice if it wasn't always the only option? If our current options for any disease--pick your favorite: MS, Alzheimer's, cancer, HIV, diabetes, heart disease--weren't guaranteed to be the only ones?