“According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease....In fiscal year 2009, breast cancer research received $872 million worth of federal funding, while prostate cancer received $390 million.”
If breast cancer is a more serious disease than prostate cancer, it does make sense to spend more on the former.
(Assuming that the number of breast cancer deaths equals the number of breast cancer cases times exp(-(federal funding for breast cancer research)/k) and likewise for prostate cancer disease, the constant k is $529M for breast cancer and $204M for prostate cancer, and the allocation of $1.262bn among these two diseases that minimizes the total number of deaths is about $765M for breast cancer and $497M for prostate cancer, resulting in about 68,200 combined deaths compared to the actual 71,890, so the actual allocation is at least in the right ballpark.)
Certainly not most of it, but:
“According to estimates from the National Institutes of Health, in the United States in 2010, 207,090 women and 1,970 men will get new cases of breast cancer, while 39,840 women and 390 men will likely die from the disease. The estimated new cases of prostate cancer this year — all affecting men — is 217,730, while it is predicted 32,050 will die from the disease....In fiscal year 2009, breast cancer research received $872 million worth of federal funding, while prostate cancer received $390 million.”
If breast cancer is a more serious disease than prostate cancer, it does make sense to spend more on the former.
(Assuming that the number of breast cancer deaths equals the number of breast cancer cases times exp(-(federal funding for breast cancer research)/k) and likewise for prostate cancer disease, the constant k is $529M for breast cancer and $204M for prostate cancer, and the allocation of $1.262bn among these two diseases that minimizes the total number of deaths is about $765M for breast cancer and $497M for prostate cancer, resulting in about 68,200 combined deaths compared to the actual 71,890, so the actual allocation is at least in the right ballpark.)