Specter's Kemp Comments Were Both Insensitive and Misguided

In an interview with the Washington Times, Arlen Specter justified his recent departure from the GOP by saying:

“If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.”

We partially dissent. As a practical matter, we wouldn’t mind seeing more federal research dollars assigned to combating cancer as opposed to the hype-of-the-month malady or a breakout of acne on spotted owls.

But, Congress cannot merely pass a law to make cancer go away. It can fund efforts, but that sometimes creates unexpected or unanticipated consequences. It may be that when federal funding is available, researchers focus on conventional areas more likely to be approved for federal funding than the wild and crazy innovations that might actually lead to a genuine breakthrough. Or, it may be that federal funding allows researchers to spend time focusing on academically interesting angles that are not likely to be useful to ordinary people when those researchers would otherwise be pushing for practical results at a large biotech or pharmaceutical firm. We don’t know, but we’ve heard multiple theories on why federal funding is not as helpful as one might first expect.

Specter’s reasoning also fails to acknowledge that the private medical, pharmaceutical, and biotech companies in the United States are leading the world in cutting edge treatment for cancer. Sadly, it’s not enough to save many lives. However, efforts from the Left of Specter’s new party to institute single payer and other forms of socialized medicine could have seriously undermined the system that is working today by legislatively putting an end to the profit-motive as an incentive to develop new and better cancer treatments.

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