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> First, cancer research charities are some of the most well funded on this planet Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I think charities exist to exist. They don't h

by bko 2mo ago

> First, cancer research charities are some of the most well funded on this planet Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I think charities exist to exist. They don't have a strong incentive to actually deliver on their mission. Everyone at the org may be fully bought it and obviously want to cure cancer, but as an organization it would fail to deliver on the promise. Like most organisms, their actual purpose is to continue to be influential, grow and continue to exist. I think cancer will be solved by some group that could make a lot of money solving cancer. The probability of any one path working is very low so the payout would have to be very large for anyone to be willing to pursue.

shafyy 2mo ago
A lot of basic research (including medicinal) is funded by governments who are not in it to make a lot of money. Sure, medical companies who then develop drugs based on this decades of knowledge and research are profit-oriented, but that's only one part of the equation.
magicalist 2mo ago
> Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I think charities exist to exist. They don't have a strong incentive to actually deliver on their mission. Everyone at the org may be fully bought it and obviously want to cure cancer, but as an organization it would fail to deliver on the promise. Like most organisms, their actual purpose is to continue to be influential, grow and continue to exist. I mean, yes, "I haven't looked into the specifics, but working from the first principles I came up with in 3 seconds, cancer research charities are in fact cancer on society" does come off a bit reductively cynical.
Loughla 2mo ago
I'm the opposite. I think publicly funded organizations will be the ones to come up with the cure. My reasoning is this; any company that is going to find a cure for cancer probably already has divisions that work on treating cancer. If the cure isn't more profitable than the treatment, there is every incentive to suppress the cure.
- demibabs 2mo ago
  I don’t think it works like that. If you can find and patent a cure to cancer, you can charge whatever you want for it, at least in the US. I don’t think profit would be an issue. And even if ending chemotherapy would discourage the incumbents, smaller companies would love the opportunity to kill them. For example, Polaroid didn’t want to embrace digital cameras since they made tons of money selling physical film. But all the smaller camera companies didn’t care, since they weren’t benefiting from that and wanted to just take Polaroid’s market share. And that’s why digital cameras took off regardless.
shaganer 2mo ago
Charity doesn't stop at the cure, but continues to shift with progress. If a big public charity is able to cure a cancer type (eg. lung cancer), then it's next aim would be to try cure another cancer type. Let's just say they are somehow able to cure all the cancers, and therefore they cured cancer, then there's distribution of the cure, with a focus on 1st world but then it would have to go to developing nations too. Along the way, there may be issues that arise in recovery from the cure, so money towards helping survivors there. Shift goal, shift goal, shift distribution/priority of donations, on and on and on. For the proper charities that do want to meet their goals, something like this is what they'd do.
- jacquesm 2mo ago
  Has that model been proven to work for other diseases?
  - mardef 2mo ago
    Malaria is one that comes to mind. We can prevent it, have eradicated it from many countries, but the long tail will take a few more decades to reach planet-wide success. There are charities that specialize in analyzing climate data to see where outbreaks may occur next. There are charities that just do government outreach to leaders that don't believe medicine is real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_malaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_malaria
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    I mean, we were making progress with measles but then RFK happened.
    - tmp10423288442 2mo ago
      Maybe yes, maybe no. Measles cases have been on a long-term upward trend in the US since the bottom around 2000: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-measles-cases?time=2000..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-measles-cases?t... In Canada, measles cases suddenly exploded in 2025 as well, and they don't have RFK Jr. there: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ The policies around measles vaccines have shifted a little since RFK became HHS Secretary, but not in a material way. Generally the messaging has focused on putting measles, mumps, and rubella in individual vaccines rather than combined, but at no point has the federal government recommended not to get vaccinated. That, combined with the Canadian data, implies that RFK or other changes to US health policy are not likely to be the cause of the measles outbreaks.
datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
It's likely a mixed bag. If you're diligent about which organizations you choose to support, you're more likely to have a positive impact. If you want a simpler example that doesn't involve biotech research, I would just look at the diversity of animal welfare organizations, and their relative quality. Some of the best animal welfare organizations in terms of impact are local rescues run by (in my experience) spouses of wealthy career-people (executives, lawyers, etc.) who have a ton of free time and love animals. But then there are also plenty of animal welfare organizations with questionable motives, and questionable spending patterns - bordering on fraud and embezzlement, if not outright fraud and embezzlement.

by bko 2mo ago

shafyy 2mo ago

A lot of basic research (including medicinal) is funded by governments who are not in it to make a lot of money. Sure, medical companies who then develop drugs based on this decades of knowledge and research are profit-oriented, but that's only one part of the equation.

magicalist 2mo ago

> Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I think charities exist to exist. They don't have a strong incentive to actually deliver on their mission. Everyone at the org may be fully bought it and obviously want to cure cancer, but as an organization it would fail to deliver on the promise. Like most organisms, their actual purpose is to continue to be influential, grow and continue to exist. I mean, yes, "I haven't looked into the specifics, but working from the first principles I came up with in 3 seconds, cancer research charities are in fact cancer on society" does come off a bit reductively cynical.

Loughla 2mo ago

I'm the opposite. I think publicly funded organizations will be the ones to come up with the cure. My reasoning is this; any company that is going to find a cure for cancer probably already has divisions that work on treating cancer. If the cure isn't more profitable than the treatment, there is every incentive to suppress the cure.

demibabs 2mo ago
I don’t think it works like that. If you can find and patent a cure to cancer, you can charge whatever you want for it, at least in the US. I don’t think profit would be an issue. And even if ending chemotherapy would discourage the incumbents, smaller companies would love the opportunity to kill them. For example, Polaroid didn’t want to embrace digital cameras since they made tons of money selling physical film. But all the smaller camera companies didn’t care, since they weren’t benefiting from that and wanted to just take Polaroid’s market share. And that’s why digital cameras took off regardless.

shaganer 2mo ago

Charity doesn't stop at the cure, but continues to shift with progress. If a big public charity is able to cure a cancer type (eg. lung cancer), then it's next aim would be to try cure another cancer type. Let's just say they are somehow able to cure all the cancers, and therefore they cured cancer, then there's distribution of the cure, with a focus on 1st world but then it would have to go to developing nations too. Along the way, there may be issues that arise in recovery from the cure, so money towards helping survivors there. Shift goal, shift goal, shift distribution/priority of donations, on and on and on. For the proper charities that do want to meet their goals, something like this is what they'd do.

jacquesm 2mo ago
Has that model been proven to work for other diseases?
- mardef 2mo ago
  Malaria is one that comes to mind. We can prevent it, have eradicated it from many countries, but the long tail will take a few more decades to reach planet-wide success. There are charities that specialize in analyzing climate data to see where outbreaks may occur next. There are charities that just do government outreach to leaders that don't believe medicine is real. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_malaria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_malaria
- fragmede 2mo ago
  I mean, we were making progress with measles but then RFK happened.
  - tmp10423288442 2mo ago
    Maybe yes, maybe no. Measles cases have been on a long-term upward trend in the US since the bottom around 2000: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-measles-cases?time=2000..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-measles-cases?t... In Canada, measles cases suddenly exploded in 2025 as well, and they don't have RFK Jr. there: https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ https://health-infobase.canada.ca/measles-rubella/ The policies around measles vaccines have shifted a little since RFK became HHS Secretary, but not in a material way. Generally the messaging has focused on putting measles, mumps, and rubella in individual vaccines rather than combined, but at no point has the federal government recommended not to get vaccinated. That, combined with the Canadian data, implies that RFK or other changes to US health policy are not likely to be the cause of the measles outbreaks.

datsci_est_2015 2mo ago

It's likely a mixed bag. If you're diligent about which organizations you choose to support, you're more likely to have a positive impact. If you want a simpler example that doesn't involve biotech research, I would just look at the diversity of animal welfare organizations, and their relative quality. Some of the best animal welfare organizations in terms of impact are local rescues run by (in my experience) spouses of wealthy career-people (executives, lawyers, etc.) who have a ton of free time and love animals. But then there are also plenty of animal welfare organizations with questionable motives, and questionable spending patterns - bordering on fraud and embezzlement, if not outright fraud and embezzlement.