“There are immediate wins” – protecting science spending in austere times

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Money

Government spending on research brings crucial benefits

These are difficult times for the economy. Next month, the Government is set to announce the results of its recent Spending Review, looking at how much it is going to spend on each area of the UK’s economy.

Yesterday, at a meeting in Parliament, our chief executive Dr Harpal Kumar championed the crucial role of medical research in the UK. He was speaking at an All Party Parliamentary Group on Medical Research event about “Investing in medical research for the UK’s future”. 

It was a great chance for Harpal to talk about the fantastic, life-saving medical and scientific research that’s going on in the UK, and how it’s vital that our Government maintains its spending on science.

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Angelina Jolie, inherited breast cancer and the BRCA1 gene

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Angelina Jolie

Actress Angelina Jolie has had surgery to prevent breast cancer

The news today is full of reaction to US actress Angelina Jolie’s decision to have surgery to reduce her chances of breast cancer.

She made this difficult decision because, having lost her mother to ovarian cancer, she discovered she carries a faulty copy of the BRCA1 gene – which put her at very high risk of getting both forms of the disease.

If you haven’t read her brave and thoughtful piece in the New York Times, it’s worth doing so.

But in the light of the considerable interest, and the fact that many people will undoubtedly have questions, we wanted to pull together a few quick thoughts and facts on the topic of inherited breast cancer generally, and the BRCA1 gene specifically.

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Funding the very best science – how does it work?

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Piggy bank

We have a responsibility to spend our supporters’ donations wisely

Our research is funded by the public – around 80p in every pound donated to us is spent on this vital work – so we have a responsibility to make sure our supporters’ cash gets spent on the very best science that will make a difference to people with cancer.

We’ve written before about how our funding committees allocate millions of pounds, raised by our supporters, to scientists, doctors and nurses across the UK. But we thought it might be helpful to lift the lid on the finer points of our funding processes in a bit more detail. 

The following story is an illustration of what happens when someone applies to us for funding.

We’ve changed the name of the researcher, but all the details are taken from a real-life situation.

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News digest – tobacco disappointment, genetic ‘fine tuners’, vaccine cost drop, and more

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The latest cancer news

The latest cancer news

  • Wednesday was a sad day for public health. The worrying rumours we’d heard last week – that the government had scrapped plans to introduce plain, standardised tobacco packaging in the Queen’s speech – turned out to be true. This BBC article has more info. We wrote about why this is a blow in the fight against cancer.
  • Our scientists found that genetic ‘fine tuners’ known as microRNAs control the body’s own attack against breast cancer. Read more in our press release
  • US scientists uncovered why breast cancer patients with dense breasts are often more likely to develop aggressive tumours that spread. This NewsWise article has more info.
  • Also across the pond, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine identified a group of proteins that are faulty in about one-fifth of all human cancers. Science Daily covered the story.
  • Pharmaceutical companies agreed a substantial discount on the cost of cervical cancer vaccines for the developing world. The New York Times and the Guardian have more detail.

And finally

  • We were dismayed this week by several headlines like this: “Sun’s blood pressure benefits may outdo cancer risks”. The study in question only looked at the blood pressure of 24 volunteers who sat beneath tanning lamps. It didn’t directly look at skin cancer risk and also hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. Overexposure to UV radiation from the sun or sunbeds is the main cause of skin cancer, so we advise everyone to enjoy the sun safely.

A sad day for public health – standard packs and the path ahead

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Join our Plain Packaging Campaign

The 2010 film The King’s Speech was a national triumph. So at Cancer Research UK we’re dismayed to have to report that we’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet for yesterday’s Queen’s Speech.

In fact, quite the opposite.

The Queen’s Speech – which outlined the Government’s focus for the next year – has, shockingly, left plans to put tobacco products in plain, standardised packaging, on the cutting room floor.

The government has thus failed to deliver on a policy that would help protect children from a product that has no safe level of consumption.

So today, nine months since its consultation closed in August 2012, we’re left hanging, still waiting for the government to make a clear statement of its intentions.

In that time more than 150,000 children have started smoking – the beginning of an addiction that kills half its long-term users.

In light of this disappointing decision, we wanted to outline, clearly and simply, which organisations support this measure. Also we thought it worth exposing the vested interests of its opponents. This is all worth knowing, because this fight isn’t over; this is not “The End”.

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A Queen’s Speech to speed up progress against cancer?

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The Queen

Today, the Queen set out the Government’s priorities for the next year

This morning the Queen opened the third session of the 2010-15 Parliament with a speech in the House of Lords.

Her speech was written by the Government, and outlined its legislative agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session (which will last roughly a year).

And over the next couple of days, both Peers in the House of Lords, and MPs in the House of Commons will debate its contents.

Cancer Research UK takes a great interest in the Government’s plans, and how we think they will affect cancer patients and research into the disease.

So what are the key points for us from this speech?

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News digest – breast cancer rates, worrying tobacco rumours, genetic maps and more

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man reading newspaper

It’s time for our round-up of the week’s headlines

  • In other breast cancer news, tamoxifen and similar oestrogen-blocking drugs have been found to reduce breast cancer rates by more than a third in women at high risk. Our press release and blog both have more detail. We also liked this Telegraph piece about tamoxifen.
  • Several papers (including the Guardian) covered research about a possible link between cosmetic breast implants and a greater chance of dying from breast cancer. The research does not suggest implants cause cancer, but they may cause a delay in diagnosis. As this excellent NHS Choices analysis says, larger studies are needed to understand this link.

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