High-stakes politics

Different stories now pique my interest when I scan the front page of newspaper. Take today's New York Times, for instance.

While only a couple of months ago the story about Andrew Cuomo considering a run for governor would have been the first thing I read ( when I did read it today, I was disappointed but not surprised that there was nothing new in it) today it slipped down a notch.

The story that captured my attention concerned a how lack of volunteers is hindering the fight to find cures for cancer. Forty years after President Nixon delcared war on cancer, the story said, the disease still has the upper hand.

According to The Times, only about 3 percent of adult cancer patients participate in studies. And as one of the docs quoted in the story said, it's hard to improve treatment when you can't find enough subjects to compare existing therapies to new ones.

On the other hand, as we used to say in the news biz, who wants to be in the placebo category?

If I am fortunate, I will participate this fall in a "cyberknife'' radiation-treatment program at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. It's a promising, but unproven, form of therapy. There have been no studies yet of people with comparable symptoms, some of whom get the therapy and some who don't, and who fared better.

And, ahem, I would not be among those raising my hand of I were asked to be in a control group of someone with my symptoms who doesn't get the treatment.

Thus the conundrum.

Turns out the trials and other testing is expensive for doctors and hospitals, which is a further disincentive to launch them.

There is also a tension, one doctor told us, between the desire of some to advance the cause of finding cures from what is best for a particular patient.

I thought when I was working I witnessed a lot of high-stakes politics. But it now looks like the stakes were trivial compared to what's going on in health care.