BC research funding by Dept of Defence at $130 million this year!

[PJBinMI]

Something I didn't until a few years into living with mbc was that the Department of Defense fund medical research, including bc research. DOD is responsible for the health of all our service people plus their spouses and children as well as veterans, thru the VA. In the 1990s sometime, some bc advocates learned about that and were able to lobby for funding specifically for bc. The last time I attended a conference where this was discussed, the funding level for bc research was $120 million a year. One of the interesting things about how this process works is that trained patient advocates sit on the committees that made the decisions about which research grant proposals to fund. I was able to do that several years ago and it was an amazing experience for me. There were about 22 people on this committee and four of us were bc patient advocates and the PhD level researchers, oncologist, surgeon and dentist on the committee really listened to us! I trained for this type of thing by attending the National Breast Cancer Coalition's ProjectLEAD, which at that time was a week long 12 hour a day educational program on the science and medicine of bc. I met amazing people doing that, too. If you are well enough and inclined towards advocacy, this is a very rewarding way for us to use what we learn about living with cancer to help research move forward!

[Red71]

I didn’t realize that the DOD did that but it makes sense now that there are more women members of the forces. My husband worked for the VA for 23 years and I know how hard most VA medical personnel work to improve the lives of their patients. It sounds like wonderful work.

[NPmary]

Wow, that is great! Good for you and thank you.

[PJBinMI in reply to NPmary]

Being on that committee was one of the best cancer related experiences I've ever had! Meeting researchers showed me just how dedicated they are and how much they want to work with others to find better treatment for cancer! Just listening to them was enlightening. One lousy thing I learned was that researchers have to spend more time chasing funding that doing actual research......that is pretty disgusting!