Your Support Helps Fund Innovative Research To Detect Breast Cancer Earlier
What if a bra could detect breast cancer? Through a grant awarded by CCS and partners, Dr Elijah Van Houten and his team are developing a bra that can detect small breast cancer tumours using cutting-edge technology that can sense and measure the differences between breast tumours and healthy breast tissue.
When detected early, breast cancers are more likely to be treated successfully. In addition to regular mammograms, this amazing technology could be part of the life-saving future of breast cancer screening.
We hope to transform breast cancer screening, making it a more comfortable, simple, regular and convenient way to undergo screening at home, says Dr Van Houten.
This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, donate to help create a world where no Canadian fears breast cancer.
When you donate, you can also create a digital pink ribbon, a virtual badge to print or share through your social networks to honour or remember loved ones affected by breast cancer.
How The American Cancer Society Funds Research
No single nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization in the US has invested more to find the causes and cures of cancer than the American Cancer Society. We fund the best science to find answers that help save lives.
Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about how the American Cancer Society pays for cancer research.
Taking Chances On Innovative Ideas
METAvivor is run mostly by people living with MBC, who are committed to making a difference for the metastatic breast cancer community by funding ground breaking research. METAvivor is the only US non-profit that awards peer-reviewed research grants exclusively for already disseminated breast cancer. The grants that METAvivor awards allow researchers to obtain the initial findings they need to attract larger grants or translate findings into new or improved treatments and therapies.
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About Canadian Cancer Society:
Founded in 1938, Canadian Cancer Society aims to improve the lives of everyone affected by cancer. CCS believes it has had more impact against more cancers in more communities than any other cancer charity in Canada. Currently, nearly half of Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and one in four Canadians will die from cancer. It is estimated that more than 200,000 Canadians are diagnosed with cancer every year. CCS has three main focus areas: Support Programs, Research, and Advocacy.
Support Programs represented 50% of program spending in F2021. The programs provide practical support to people affected by cancer through online resources, telephone counselling, transportation and accommodation, free wigs and prosthetics, and other services. In F2020, Canadian Cancer Society provided 235,900 rides to and from cancer treatments for over 12,500 people. The charity also helped support 287,000 people through CancerConnections, an online peer support community. In F2020, 19.2 million people went to the charitys website to learn more about cancer, an increase of over 14 million in F2019. To support youth, 600 kids attended Camp Goodtimes in BC, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick in F2020 to help families affected by cancer to relax and make new memories together.
Output data is from F2020 as the charitys 2021 Annual Report was not available at the time of this profile update.
Our Response To Covid
Cancer Research UK, like many charities, has been hit hard by COVID-19. In 2020, we had to cancel many of our mass fundraising events, and our 600 shops were forced to close for much of the year. We initially expected to see our income fall by £300m over three years and we took immediate steps to cut costs, furloughing many of our staff and temporarily moving the rest to 80% hours and pay.
In difficult times, we turned to our supporters, and your response was staggering. We ran two appeals to drive urgent cash donation, raising over £8m with a further £20.5m pledged in regular giving. Many face-to-face events became virtual, including Race for Life At Home and A Very 2020 Race for Life, and more than 100,000 of you took part in one of these new virtual fundraising challenges.
Thanks to your dedication to our mission, we have outperformed our targets. We are now predicting a drop in income of only £250m over three years. This is still significant, and weve still had to make cuts to the amount we spend on research and reduce the size of our workforce, but your support has helped us weather one of the most difficult periods in our history.
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Carol M Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund Inc
The Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund supports both new and established researchers, experts who are working towards discovering the causes of breast cancer, in addition to prevention and treatment options.
Their research looks at various factors of the disease, including genetic, molecular, cellular and environmental. The fund states that it has, to date, awarded more than 72 research grants a total of more than $4 million to medical research.
A More Systematic Approach
From a public health point of view, the allocation of research money should reflect the incidence, the mortality, and the social burden of a disease. From an egalitarian point of view, research funding of diseaserelated research should be distributed fairly and impartially. Yet, democracy and freedom of speech also empower patients, their families, and their communities to raise their voices and convince politicians and the public that their plight deserves special attention. These values are sometimes incompatible, but the fact that some diseases are less popular than others should not limit research into their causes, their biology, or into possible treatments. We wouldn’t want the situation to be based solely on having the loudest person’s priorities being funded we have to take care that the needs of the less vocal as well as the least well off are taken care of, Sugarman said. Governments should find ways to establish fair processes of making fair and right decisions.
To counter the effects of lobbying on public funding allocation would require a wider mobilization of public interest so as to draw attention to neglected diseases.
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How Much Research Works
much of this money is spent pursuing dead-ends
However, it turns out that much of this money is spent pursuing dead-ends, as the vast majority of promising new treatments discovered in laboratories fail when tested in real patients. In May 2016 a report was published from the largest ever study of clinical development success rates, which found that only 5.1% of promising new cancer treatments pass clinical trials. While it is natural that all research involves a degree of failure, a 95% failure rate does seem rather high and is notably less than half of the success rate of promising new medicines for most other illnesses.
So, 66% of the money we give for cancer research is spent on research but only 5.1% of this 66% is likely to be spent on developing a drug that works!
Nevertheless, this still means that 3.4% of the money we give is being spent on developing new and improved treatments that could potentially benefit patients.
Private Organizations And Cancer Research Fund Raising
There are many private organizations in the United States that raise money for cancer research and treatment and provide other support activities. Some of these private organizations may refer to NCI and include the toll-free telephone number for NCIs Cancer Information Service in their fund-raising literature. However, NCI is not affiliated with any of these organizations and does not participate in or endorse their fund-raising activities.
The following questions can help you evaluate the operations of a fund-raising organization and make an informed decision about contributing to the organization:
- Does the organization make its budget and a complete annual report, including an audit by an independent certified public accountant, public?
- Are the groups fund raising and administrative costs reasonable?
- Does the organization use ethical and economical fund-raising methods?
- Is the organization transparent about how it is managed?
- Is the information it distributes misleading, deceptive, or inaccurate?
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Where Does Public Funding For Cancer Research Go
With the advent of vaccines, antibiotics, hygiene, and food safety, the toll of infectious diseases on human lives has decreased substantially. Pathogens are no longer the major cause of death, disability, and suffering in both the developed world and many developing countries. In lieu, other diseases have risen in importance: According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, cardiovascular disease , cancer, and chronic respiratory diseasesprimarily chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are now the major causes of death and disability worldwide. CVD, the principal health problem for developed countries, has been the primary cause of mortality since 1921. Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally after CVD in 2015, it killed 8.8 million people , and the number of patients diagnosed with cancer grows each year as populations get older. COPD has become the third most deadly disease after cancer, causing 3.2 million deaths in 2015 1.
as money flows into research institutes, universities and hospitals, the question is how funding is being allocated to study specific diseases
Does Any Money From This Purchase Go To Support Breast Cancer Programs How Much
Any company can put a pink ribbon on its products. The widely recognized pink ribbon symbol is not regulated by any agency and does not necessarily mean it effectively combats the breast cancer epidemic. Some products sport pink ribbons to try to communicate that they are healthy and dont contribute to breast cancer, such as a number of natural health and beauty products. Other products have a pink ribbon in order to indicate that the company supports breast cancer programs even if the companys contributions are not tied to the purchases of the specific product bearing the ribbon. Still other companies give a portion of an items cost to a breast cancer organization but may require further action on the part of the consumer for the donation to be realized. Can you tell how much money from your purchases will go to support breast cancer programs? If not, consider giving directly to the charity of your choice instead.
EXAMPLE: In 2010, Dansko shoe company sold pink ribbon clogs. Consumers likely thought that a portion of their purchase of pink ribbon clogs went to a breast cancer program. However, purchase of the pink ribbon clogs was not connected to Danskos donationnone of the portion of the sales went toward their already set donation of $25,000 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. No matter whether or not you bought the clogs, their donation was the same.
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Is There A Cap On The Amount The Company Will Donate Has This Maximum Donation Already Been Met Can You Tell
Some companies that indicate that a portion of the proceeds from the sale of a particular pink ribbon product will go to support breast cancer programs put an arbitrary cap on their maximum donation. Once the maximum amount has been met, the company may continue to sell the product with the pink ribbon without alerting customers that no additional funds will be donated to breast cancer organizations. This means you may be buying a product for which none of your purchase price will go to a breast cancer cause but only to the bottom line of the company.
EXAMPLE: In 2010, Reebok marketed a line of pink ribbon emblazoned footwear and apparel at prices ranging from $50 to $100. Though it heavily promoted the fact that some of their pink ribbon product sales would be donated tothe Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, they set a limit of $750,000, regardless of how many items were sold, and therewas no mechanism in place to alert consumers once the maximum donation had been met.
Projects Supported By The Gift Fund
Projects supported through the Gift Fund may vary from year to year depending on NCI research priorities. The following are some of the activities that have received NCI Gift Fund assistance:
- supporting special fellowships to train young scientists in cancer research
- acquiring clinical laboratory equipment to support cancer research
- assisting patients experiencing financial need through the NIH Clinical Center’s Patient Emergency Fund
- supporting workshops and conferences on subjects of special importance to cancer research
- printing materials to educate the public about cancer
- supporting Camp Fantastic, a week-long adventure for children ages 717 who are undergoing cancer treatment
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How Much Funding Do We Need
About 1,000 new research grant applications come in each year. Of these received applications, approximately 10 to 15% are approved for funding. Plus, our peer review committees always recommend that more applications be funded than we have the funds to cover. These Pay-If applications can be, and often are, subsidized by donors who wish to support research that would not otherwise be funded. For instance, in 2019, $5.1 million additional donations helped finance 24 Pay-If applications.
Research Funding From Nonprofit Organizations
In total, the nonprofit sector raises an estimated $2.5 to $3.25 billion for breast cancer in a given fiscal year. While there are numerous nonprofit organizations across the country and in other countries that raise funds to invest in breast cancer research and other activities, few invest more than $1 million annually.
According to their financial reports, the top three private funders of breast cancer research in the United States donated $125.6 million during their 2012 fiscal years. These include: Avon, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
The research allocations of the top nonprofit funders do not represent the organizations total budgets.
Between 1992 and 2010 the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade raised $700 million, but 2009 figures suggest that only about 23 percent of expenditures each year go toward research grants.
Since 1993 the Breast Cancer Research Foundation raised more than $300 million with 88 percent of its annual budget going to research.
Susan G. Komen for the Cures 2011 financial statements report that 15 percent of its $420 million in revenues was spent in the research category . In contrast 43 percent was spent on education, 18 percent on fund-raising and administration, 12 percent on screening, and 5 percent on treatment.
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Get Involved In Cancer
There are a number of ways you can get involved with efforts aimed at the fight against cancer, or those that help others cope with the disease. You can:
- Give support. You can give support in everyday ways, such as helping people with cancer with meals and errands, or driving them to appointments. Or you can become part of a peer support program to help others with cancer.
- Learn more about cancer. Help others by raising awareness and sharing what you know about coping with the disease. Or help people in their search for information as they look at the many websites and organizations that pertain to cancer. If youre a cancer survivor or loved one of a patient, you may be able to help people understand the health care system.
- Volunteer. Cancer-related organizations include many different kinds of groups that help people with cancer. These groups may focus on areas such as service and support, fund raising, research, or policy matters. Many need the help of volunteers.
For more information on getting involved in cancer-related activities, see the NCI booklet Facing Forward: Making a Difference in Cancer.
Breast Cancer Receives More Funding Than Lung Cancer And Bowel Cancer Combined
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Breast cancer research receives more money than any other form of the disease in the UK, official data shows.
The figures come from the National Cancer Research Institute – a partnership of UK cancer research funders and the body which co-ordinates where the money goes.
Since 2002, the organisation has funded more than £4.5bn of research studying the causes behind and cures for the devastating disease.
But a chart compiled by online statistics portal Statista for i100.co.uk shows the disparity in funding pumped into researching different forms of the disease.
While lung cancer claims far more lives than any other form of the disease in the UK each year – making up 22 per cent of deaths – it has received £14.16million from the NCRI.
Meanwhile, over £25million has been given to researching bowel cancer, which causes 10 per cent of total cancer deaths.
Breast cancer, which makes up for of 7.7 per cent of cancer-related deaths, has been given £40.32 million more than bowel and lung cancer combined.
Leukaemia which causes 2.2 per cent of cancer deaths, a relatively small number compared to other forms of the disease, has had over £33 million dedicated to it.
The question is not whether different types of cancer should receive more or less funding, but rather why the discrepancies exist.
She added that thanks to research, survival rates for cancer have rocketed in the past four decades.
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Plaudits For Low Overhead
Still, in categories like administration and overhead Komen wins plaudits from outside experts. Charity Navigator, an independent nonprofit that scrutinizes such groups finances, awards it four out of four stars, and 65.55 out of 70 points for financial performance.
That reflects the relatively small amount Komen reports spending on administration and fundraising and its accountability and transparency. Komen issues audited financial statements, for instance, and has policies on conflicts of interest and whistleblowing.
Komen also shines for what it pays founder and CEO Nancy Brinker: $417,712 in 2011. That is almost $300,000 less than the Breast Cancer Research Foundation reported in salary and benefits for its president last year. Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthoods president, received $354,716 in the fiscal year ending in June 2010.
In absolute terms, Komen is a leader in funding breast cancer research among private organizations. The $63 million it granted in 2011 pales beside the estimated $763 million spent by the National Institutes of Health in 2011 and the $150 million budgeted by the Department of Defense in 2012.
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation reported spending 92 percent of what it raised on research the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, 56 percent.
The Avon Foundation, which sponsors both walks and research efforts, does not itemize its breast cancer spending in its financial statements.