Maybe if we gave them money they’ll be sure to include us
Wow!
Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas/Southwest
Aiming to become a global leader in cancer research, Texas plans to invest $3 billion over the next decade in a bid to eradicate the disease that kills more than half a million Americans every year.
My first reaction was “great idea!” Just be sure that the money raised for the fund goes to actual cancer research and not funding the state government like the recreation tax, the gas tax, the cigarette tax–I’m sure there are plenty of other examples but you get the picture. I could see Perry using this as a way of recovering from his franchise tax mistake.
My second reaction was “wow, San Antonio has already screwed up it’s opportunity.” The San Antonio Express News, unlike the Dallas Morning News included the following quote in it’s story:
“It’s not going to be a partisan thing. It’s not going to be a regional thing. Every one of us have had our lives touched by cancer,” added Nelson, whose co-sponsors will be Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and Democratic Sen. Kirk Watson, former Austin mayor and a survivor of testicular cancer.
Now why is this significant? Well, somehow the announcement managed to include representatives from well established cancer research organizations in Houston, Austin, and Dallas.
Where was San Antonio? Maybe the people at the CTRC (Cancer Therapy Research Center) were too busy trying to figure out how to regain it’s NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center designation. Or maybe they’re having to spend a lot of time recruiting researchers to fill the four major openings left by the resignation of senior staff earlier this month. It can be hard to recruit people when you require them to fund their own positions with research and then limit how much can come from pharmaceutical industry research.
This should be a great opportunity for the CTRC and would actually help them to design more studies independent of the pharmaceutical industry. Although, according to Perry, part of the fund’s goal would be
Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas/Southwest
the fund will draw high-tech companies and well-paying jobs to the state, Perry said.
I’m sure CTRC was represented at the luncheon, it just wasn’t worthy of being quoted in any of the stories about the announcement. And that’s pretty much par for the course for San Antonio. But we have given Microsoft more than $20 million dollars.
Technorati Tags: Cancer research, Texas, Rick Perry, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Susan G. Komen, Jim Keffer, Jane Nelson, Cathy Bonner, San Antonio, CTRC, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, Institute for Drug Development, Anthony Tolcher, John Freeman, Tyler Curiel
Filed under: Anthony Tolcher, CTRC, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, Cancer research, Cathy Bonner, Institute for Drug Development, Jane Nelson, Jim Keffer, John Freeman, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Rick Perry, San Antonio, Susan G. Komen, Tyler Curiel, Uncategorized, texas
