Policy Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Policy Change - Essay ExampleTo attack this disease in the coming decades will affect a government policy that elevates the importance of cancer research, adequately funds the program, and makes funding available to the most promising research.Cancer research has been typically funded by organizations such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) or university medical centers. The NCI is the principle governmental agency that is creditworthy for the nations cancer research policies. It has seen its budget reduced in 2006 and 2007 when it received $4.75 billion dollars from the US Congress (Cancer Research Funding). The agency is charged with ascertain which types of cancer are researched and where to give their scarce resources. The research needs to be split among the important aspects of prevention, treatment, and cure. Dividing up the funding is often impacted by policy-making and social pressures. Advocates for breast cancer resea rch fought for years to get adequate funding in the face of national gender bias. If a cancer that afflicts a certain race or ethnicity, it may require extreme lobbying to get the attention it deserves. Social pressures often place the responsibility for prevention and the contract of the disease on the individual, such as when lung cancer is caused by smoking (Clarke and Everest 2598). Researchers often compete for private donations based on these social pressures or policy-making expediency. An important aspect of a national policy would be to force politicians to consider science, while removing doctors from the role of politician (Hoff and Bretthaur). To accomplish this all cancer research should be brought under the umbrella of a central organization.To make this policy change would require the overwhelming support of the public. To get this accomplished it would need to be elevated to the level of a national debate. The current presidential candidates could introduce