by Jon Rappoport
March 21, 2017
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The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), a federal agency, is the largest medical research institution in the world.
Its 2010 budget was $30 billion. It employs 20,000 people.
Trump wants to cut $6 billion from its budget.
Here’s what you need to know: no one has ever done a comprehensive investigation of the results of NIH’s research over the years. No one has done a proper assessment of its value.
If NIH were a corporation, it would have undergone numerous assessments of its products. But government work is different. There are no standards. “We’re trying our best” is good enough. Especially when in-house PR flacks with media connections trumpet “breakthroughs” and “upcoming innovations right around the corner.”
Back in 1987, I interviewed Jim Warner, a White House policy analyst in the Reagan administration. Warner told me he had to pull rank to even get through and talk to scientists at NIH.
“These guys [at NIH] assume that it’s their show. They just assume it,” he said. He was referring to the then-current research on AIDS.
I suggested that someone should do an overall investigation of NIH, to see how valuable its research had proved to be over the past 20 years. He agreed. He said he hadn’t thought of that, and it was a good idea.
Of course, it never happened.
The situation at NIH is preposterous. If you owned a company that made parts for planes, wouldn’t you do quality control? Wouldn’t you want to know how well those plane parts were performing in the real world?
Let’s take one area, out of the 27 separate NIH centers that do medical research: NCI, the National Cancer Institute. How is the War on Cancer going?
From The Skeptical Inquirer, Jan.-Feb. 2010, author Reynold Spector:
“…Gina Kolata [reporter] pointed out in The New York Times [2009] that the cancer death rate, adjusted for the size and age of the population, has decreased by only 5 percent since 1950…She argues that there has been very little overall progress in the war on cancer.” (see here and here)
Author Spector points out how researchers can manipulate results to create the impression that cancer treatment is becoming more successful: “…there are several types of detection bias. First, if one discovers a malignant tumor very early and starts therapy immediately, even if the therapy is worthless, it will appear that the patient lives longer than a second patient (with an identical tumor) treated with another worthless drug if the cancer in the second patient was detected later. Second, detection bias can also occur with small tumors, especially of the breast and prostate, that would not harm the patient if left untreated but can lead to unnecessary and sometimes mutilating therapy.”
Spector discusses prostate cancer: “…prostate cancer therapy also presents a serious quandary. At autopsy, approximately 30 percent (or more) of men have cancer foci in their prostate glands, yet only 1 to 2 percent of men die of prostate cancer. Thus less than 10 percent of prostate cancer patients require treatment. This presents a serious dilemma: whom should the physician treat? Moreover, recently, two large studies of prostate cancer screening with prostate specific antigen (PSA) have seriously questioned the utility of screening. In one study, the investigators had to screen over a thousand men before they saved one life. This led to about fifty “false positive” patients who often underwent surgery and/or radiation therapy unnecessarily (Schröder et al. 2009). The second study, conducted in the United States, was negative (Andriole et al. 2009), i.e., no lives were saved due to the screening, but many of the screening-positive patients with prostate cancer were treated. Welch and Albertson (2009) and Brawley (2009) estimate that more than a million men in the U.S. have been unnecessarily treated for prostate cancer between 1986 and 2005, due to over-diagnostic PSA screening tests. In the end, screening for prostate cancer will not be useful until methods are developed to determine which prostate cancers detected by screening will harm the patient (Welch and Albertson 2009; Brawley 2009).”
What about so-called smart drugs for cancer? Spector: “Smart drugs are defined as drugs that focus on a particular vulnerability of the cancer; they are not generalized but rather specific toxins. But the Journal of the American Medical Association (Health Agencies Update 2009) reports that 90 percent of the drugs or biologics approved by the FDA in the past four years for cancer (many of them smart drugs) cost more than $20,000 for twelve weeks of therapy, and many offer a survival benefit of only two months or less (Fojo and Grady 2009).”
Spector cites an example of such a smart drug: “The FDA has approved bevacizumab…Since the median survival of colorectal cancer is eighteen months, bevacizumab therapy would cost about $144,000 (in such a patient) for four months prolongation of survival (Keim 2008)…Moreover, bevacizumab can have terrible side effects, including gastrointestinal perforations, serious bleeding, severe hypertension, clot formation, and delayed wound healing (PDR 2009)…bevacizumab is at best a marginal drug. It only slightly prolongs life, demonstrable only in colorectal cancer, has serious side effects, and is very expensive.”
Cancer research at NIH is plunging ahead, of course. If we could be sure these scientists are on the right track, and their failures and shortcomings are wholly owing to the fact that cancer is such a tough problem, then perhaps they should be funded for their ongoing work.
But that is not the case.
The scientists themselves tell us they’re on the right track. That is the only assurance we have.
I’m fully aware of much cancer research that has taken place outside the mainstream over the past hundred years. In this article, I’m not exploring those efforts. I’m making the point that NIH is flying without navigation tools and pretending they are preeminent princes. WITH NO COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE VALUE OF NIH’S WORK FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS—we are not looking at science.
We are looking at an unaccountable boondoggle—and the brutal effects of conventional treatment.
Trump wants to slash $6 billion from the NIH budget? That’s a start.
But a truly sane approach would result in shutting the place down with NO funds for research, until a truly independent body figures out what the hell has been going on there.
As a reporter who has been investigating deep medical fraud and harm for the past 30 years, I can assure you the scandals that would slither out of deep corners at NIH would fry the brains of the average American.
Just one example: leading researchers, in the mid-1980s, took a failed, highly toxic, chemo drug called AZT off their dusty shelves and decided it was their best shot at treating AIDS. AZT attacks all cells of the body. It decimates bone marrow, where cells of the immune system are manufactured. And this drug became the treatment for AIDS, whose hallmark was: depletion of the immune system. AZT was the medical version of Vietnam: “We had to destroy the village in order to save it…”
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Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
That last part fries my brain.
That last comment goes for Allepo also.
Slash more.
Jon A quick note To say thank you for all you are doing. It is so important
Keep going Bill huey
I say cut it all. It is unconstitutional (against the law) and big pharma can fund their own research!
You got it. No more corporate suckling of the government teat for big pharma. Why have taxpayers pay for the research just to let giant multinationals patent the results and send their massive profits offshore?
Oh, wait. You didn’t know that’s how it worked? Isn’t that how all of government works? 10 simultaneous illegal wars under Obama just to secure oil fields and provide a continuous weapons “cash cow” for the military-industrial complex worked just fine for billionaires before Trump came into office.
Do you really think Trump will be any different? The $6B is just going to be redirected to the same industries in a more nefarious and less transparent way. Let’s get real about Trump. He’s a corporatist on steroids. The commonality is that taxpayers will continue to get screwed.
You give us much to think about. Status quo is not science, and more drugs can make it worse. Do you know anything about proton therapy? Millions of men have been left with poor quality of life by overzealous surgeons to benefit their own income and lifestyle.
Good stuff, Jon!
The public can see what kinds of grants are funded by NIH – by location and organization. I would encourage readers to preview this site. https://report.nih.gov/award/index.cfm
Thank you for this!
Bacterias, virus and cancer cells, can not survive in an neutral Alkaline body.
So, why not just alkalize our body?
Absolutely astounding Jon. WTF.
I have three guys around me diagnosed with prostate cancer. A swollen or inflamed prostate which happens a lot, is diagnosed these days as cancer.
Ok…lets create some visuals here.
Suppose you’re a car manufacturer; last year you made a Billion dollars making your cars. Nice cars, well kinda cute…wonderful colors, faggy nail polish colors, with matching upholstery, and do-hickies…trendy cars.
Now last year you made 1,000,000 cars. You delivered those cars to dealerships and the dealerships sold them all, every single one of them. Sales were up. And your car company,*Place name here* Cars & Motors, made US $1,000,000,000…wow…dan da dandan dandan dandan…lights, confetti, and flashing bulbs,..streamers and corks popping, dancing-girls on a stage with really nice legs. And in the accent of a Groucho Marx.. “Chickens have pretty legs in Kansas.”, bonus time, Christmas vacation is going-to-be-the-shit. Salesmen with brand new suits the next day.
The other shoe drops….
Now of those 1,000,000 cars, only 21,000 actually started for the first time and were able to be driven down the street. The other 979,000…lets see, four carry the two, 6 times 1 equals…Yes! The other 979,000 cars never started, never ran, didn’t work, use them as a lawn ornament. Take them back to the dealership, your car company now has a new ‘no return policy’ and no warranty, at your dealership
The 21,000 cars that started and ran, were buggy and twitchy, the paint peeled off, the rubber on the tires kept disintegrating. The spare tire was flat, and a lot of smoke came out of the exhaust. On rainy days a lot of them never started and stayed in the garage. Winter driving was terrible, and they had a lots and lots a down days.
Five years after you manufactured those 1,000,000 trendy cars, and made an astounding US $1,000,000,000 in doing that…none, yes NONE of those 1,000,000 cars started or rolled. They couldn’t be fixed, repaired. They simply stopped working completely. Taking the kids to the Drive-In was sitting in the driveway with a sheet attached to the garage door, with a 8mm film of the old days casting it silvery light on the sheet. Popcorn is extra.
That is the chemo-therapy business in the United States of America, last year US $1,000,000,000 was made in Chemo-therapy, with a 2.1% limited success rate.
“CHEMO IS ONLY 2.1% EFFECTIVE TOWARD A 5 YEAR SURVIVAL RATE.”
But the cost, wowser….did you know that Chemo-therapy is one prescription that doctors can make a profit at, there an incentive to use it. It is the most over prescribed nonsense.
The question is…that is a lot of tax money. And there is a lot of money being made on Cancer, and that is on purpose.
Can’t beat it, cancer, because you know it is caused by a toxic environment and toxic food, so like oil waste turned into plastic, you make money on it.
https://www.sott.net/article/296163-Cancer-as-a-business-model-100-billion-spent-on-chemotherapy-drugs-last-yearbehavioral economics,
http://chemoth.com/economics
http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/making-a-killing-with-cancer-a-124-6-billion-dollar-industry-12092013
Michael. you could not be more correct. When is the American public going to pull their collective heads out of the sand and try to recognize this massive fraud know as ” cancer care and treatment ” is all about money and nothing about curing anything !! I lost my Beautiful Wife last year to this satanic disease, and I know first hand how the cancer industry operates, having witnessed how they pretend to offer Hope and treatments ( $$$$ ) but in reality it is poisonous Drugs and Death which they are dispensing. I would urge people who are afflicted with cancer to seek alternative treatments, if possible, rather than subsidizing the AMA and Big Pharma. Please do your research….the information is out there.
Every year several trillions of dollars are spent worldwide on medical research. The results are close to non-existing. Occasionally something is developed to make life better for a small group of people who have a congenital disorder or had a bad accident. That’s it. Imagine that all that money would be used to give people proper food and clean water. The world would be a much better place.
Reblogged this on amnesiaclinic and commented:
Very enlightening.
http://alternative.report/trump-seeks-to-slash-6-billion-from-govt-medical-research-why-not-more/
I was invited to a celebration of the FDA approval for
the first immune therapy for cancer called Provenge.
It was the first of a new class that was not
cut, burn, or poison.
It was the first immune therapy ever in the history
of the human race. Although it was not a cure,
there were virtually none of the nasty side effects
of conventional treatment.
I was surprised that not one single member of
the media showed up to report on the celebration
that took place in San Francisco in late spring 2010.
I was also surprised by how long one government agency,
the FDA, and then another, Centers For
Medicare and Medicaid were able to delay the treatment from
getting to market.
And now, the company is out of business, and
the treatment was first sold for five cents on the dollar, and
has subsequently been sold again to a foreign company.
The group I was part of were all or most, biotech junkies like myself
who were looking for a better way to treat cancer to invest in.
I agree, Jon, if NIH was part of the effort or all of it, that is, the war on cancer,
they failed. The acronym NIH, National Institute of Health, in my biotech group,
was referred to as NIH, Not Invented Here.
Why didn’t our man in the white House cut way more…?
There are simple molecules like methylglyoxal and bromopyruvate that work pretty well. They are so cheap that they would eliminate most cancer profits.
Great article. I encourage anyone interested in the latest in cancer research to do some investigating of proton therapy, which is a relatively new form of cancer treatment. I work at UF Health Proton Therapy Institute, one of the first few proton therapy centers built.
I wrote a post about it, which includes some of the latest research showing the differences in efficacy of proton therapy to standard treatments like IMRT and chemo.