Why the Government Isn’t Funding More Research For Women’s Most Fatal Cancer
Updated: May 24, 2017
It costs very little to research ovarian cancer, the most lethal cancer for women, but funding requests for necessary research are still being denied.
The mortality rate of ovarian cancer is 56 percent, making ovarian cancer the most fatal cancer for women. And according to Ovarian Cancer Canada, there isn’t enough funding for research to learn more about the disease.
Recently, Ovarian Cancer Canada organized approximately 13,000 petitions in a request for an additional $10 million investment to advance ovarian cancer research.
If the funds are secured, researchers will be able to learn more about the development of the disease, as well as how to prevent it and further methods of treatments.
High death rates and low cost of research
In comparison to funding for research of other diseases and how fatal the cancer is, it’s actually a low investment request.
For example, the federal government invested $119.5 million in breast cancer, according to 2010-2013 statistics. And for prostate cancer, $52.8 million is invested.
Meanwhile, the five-year mortality rate of breast cancer is 13 percent and for prostate cancer, five percent.
Still, the government has denied Ovarian Cancer Canada’s funding request. They claim that enough is being done for ovarian cancer because this specific cancer can benefit from other research being conducted, according to the CEO of Ovarian Cancer Canada, Elisabeth Baugh’s, recent Huffington Post op-ed.
“This suggestion couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only has the funding shortfall stalled the speed of science, but research has shown that ovarian cancer presents particularly complex challenges, in part because it grows differently from other types of cancer,” she says.
Learning more about ovarian cancer
In the past fifty years, the survival rates and knowledge of ovarian cancer haven’t improved in the way that other diseases, such as breast cancer, has. Additional research can change that.
And since Canadians are expected to face an almost 40 percent surge in cancer cases by 2030, even more women may be at risk for the disease.
It’s time for the government to start investing in ovarian cancer immediately. After all, it’s clear that we’re already too late.
