Never happier
Well, an early splutter of the Moonshot has materialized,
and as I had feared it involves a committee.
A group of established experts on ovarian cancer has assembled,
deliberated, strained – and brought forth a mouse.
Pomposity is evident: the group calls itself The Committee on the State
of Science on Ovarian Cancer Research.
It answers to the Institute of Medicine, and is supported by the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention. A
spokesman for the group is identified as Dr. Adekunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, FRCOG, FECOG. If I understand the various articles
describing this non-event (and there are at least a half-dozen), the whole
shooting match is under the aegis of the National Academy of Science, Medicine
and Technology.
Get my point?
I don’t begrudge a bunch of ovarian cancer experts getting
together to talk shop – no matter how high the per diem. Something useful
might result, regardless of the choice of gin for their martinis. But the report of this committee is as close
to totally useless as one can be and avoid prosecution for fraud. It starts with a short description of the dilemma
of OVCA: how deadly, how complicated, how difficult to detect – there is
nothing here that even a casual reader of this blog would not know
already. Then, the bulk of the report
concerns recommendations for further work on the part of researchers,
clinicians, administrators, etc. These
could be summarized, it seems to me, as “You know what to do, so for God’s sake
do it”. Except that more words are
involved.
I was in a
negative mood when I took up this report, but I really exploded when their “Overarching
concepts” section was rolled out. These
are:
High grade serous carcinoma is
the most lethal form of OVCA, so concentrate on that.
Cancer centers should cooperate,
not compete. They should share
information and resources.
Tell clinicians about any useful
advances and assist them in putting these advances to work curing patients.
Isn’t all that
fairly obvious?
So, I don’t
think this report is very useful, and it diverted some high-powered scientists
from their labs. However, it did keep a
considerable number of governmental administrative staff in beans, and it assured
the general public that the Moonshooters are on the ball. In my view it is a net loss to humanity. It did, however, also have the effect of stressing
that March is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month.
Wear your teal ribbon. If you don’t
have one, let me know and I will send you one while they last. This offer is invalid in Russia and the
Ukraine.
You want to
read the report? Start here.
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