SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
1971, President Richard Nixon declared a war on cancer and signed the National Cancer Act.
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RICHARD NIXON: For those who have cancer and who are looking for success in this field, they at least can have the assurance that everything that can be done by government, everything that can be done by voluntary agencies in this great, powerful, rich country now will be done.
SIMON: That created the National Cancer Institute, which researches treatments for one of the world's most deadly diseases. More than 50 years later, a number of new medicines could signal real breakthroughs. There's a drug that may dramatically increase survival rates for pancreatic cancer. There are personalized vaccines that could turbocharge immunotherapy. There's even a chewing gum that could reduce the bacteria that causes HPV-related cancer. But how hopeful should we be about these new treatments? Dr. Robert A. Winn is director of the Virginia Commonwealth University's Massey Cancer Center and soon to be director of the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Winn, thanks so much for being with us.
ROBERT A WINN: Well, thank you for having me.
SIMON: You might get this question every day. What kind of progress is medical science making against cancer?
WINN: I think, as a scientist and as a clinician, one of the things I think we have not done well is telling the story of the successes, I think, which is one of the reasons why people continue to think that we're maybe not making any progress. Since 1971, and since even 1991 - let's just start there - we've made amazing progress. Thirty-four percent fewer Americans are dying from cancer today than they were in 1991, which means 34% more people are showing up to baseball games and to weddings and things like that. So we've been making significant progress on the screening front, in the treatment front and in survivorship. So lots of progress, that's for sure.
SIMON: Is the war on cancer, the national effort to treat, even find cures for cancer, has that made a big difference?
WINN: You know what? I think that we don't give enough credit to the brilliance of what happened in 1971 about organizing a national team that fights cancer. And so we frequently talk about one individual institution or an individual scientist. But what we don't talk about was the act between - the 1971 act allowed both the federal government, in this case, the NIH, NCI, academic medical centers to come up with amazing miracle molecules that would then be scaled by industry and other things to get to your doctor that pulls it off a shelf that actually treats people. So I think that if we look at 1976 to now, the 50 years, we've made substantial progress.
SIMON: How long is the process between discovery, testing, then mass producing a drug or treatment for large numbers of patients?
WINN: So historically, it has taken a long time, 15 to 20 years, right? But what I tell people is that patience matters. But with the new tools we have - AI - now all of a sudden, a lot of the manual stuff that we have to use to do that took lots of time is probably going to be shortened. So what you haven't seen and my prediction is - that the 15 to 20 years of coming to a bright idea to a drug and getting that in the future will be halved.
SIMON: So I don't have to tell you, though, the U.S. is cutting funding at a time when other countries - China, specifically, by the way - are increasing research. Are you concerned or is a breakthrough in one country ultimately good for the entire world, including the U.S.?
WINN: It's a very real threat. In addition to other countries being involved, other countries are now starting to take our bright and brilliant people and attract them to other countries - Canada, Germany and others. The unfortunate thing about that is that the investments that we have made, up to date, have actually proven to have tremendous RI for everyone. And so the saddest part about this for me, or the most concerning part is, this is the very time we should be putting our pedal to the metal, and it appears that with some of the issues around funding that we may be backing off at one of the most critical times in history. I would hope that maybe in the future, that people would recognize how much progress we've made and not to actually reduce the funding, but increase the funding for cancer research.
SIMON: At the same time, what do you look forward to most in this field in the years to come?
WINN: I think we live at a time where we have two things that are existing at the same time. We're making breakthroughs, literally. We're improving pancreatic cancer. We have quadrupled the ability of taking care of people surviving from breast cancer and many of these other ones. We are now turning our attention to thinking about not just how to treat, but how to prevent and how to get early diagnosis and early detection right now. We are living in a place where if the science continues, we have 34% fewer people dying right now. I guarantee you, if we kept the pedal to the metal, we'd probably be looking at 50% fewer Americans dying from cancer. That's possible.
SIMON: Dr. Robert A. Winn is director of Virginia Commonwealth University's Massey Cancer Center. Thank you so much for being with us.
WINN: Thank you so much for covering this topic. I think if I leave you with anything, we're doing some good stuff, and let's keep doing it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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