New top story from Time: We Need More Data in the Fight Against Cancer. Here’s a Plan to Help Us Get There

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For the first time in over a year, we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel from the devastation caused by COVID-19. While much work remains to end and avoid a resurgence of the pandemic, public and private investments in scientific research will get us to a new normal. The speed to develop, test and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines has shown how science and technology, supported by leadership from governments and the private sector, have the ability to save lives. For example, the CDC’s V-safe program, which recorded side effects, led to the collection of data from tens of millions of people after vaccination, creating a new paradigm for data collection after drug approval.

These successes show just how much can be done when we invest in science and the systems to deploy it effectively. That is why we believe President Biden has the opportunity to lead on another major investment in scientific leadership: the battle to end suffering from cancer.

Despite recent advancements in medicine, cancer still kills more Americans each year than the COVID-19 pandemic has to date. Significant disparities exist, with African-American men having the highest death rates from cancer of any group in the country.

Now in its fifth of seven years, the Cancer Moonshot program, launched under the leadership of then Vice President Biden, has made significant progress. But with challenges remaining, there is a need to renew commitment, refresh priorities and increase funding for Cancer Moonshot 2.0. These efforts will complement and accelerate the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) existing work.

We see several interrelated priorities for a second Cancer Moonshot, which can unlock new and needed progress in the war on cancer. To begin: standardizing and collecting cancer-patient data (using the same vocabulary to describe medical events and collecting patient data in the same way so they can be compared), especially on outcomes that matter to patients. Patients want to be part of the solution and participate, through use of their privacy-protected data. For too long, electronic health records have been health system–centric, making it difficult for patients, doctors and researchers to track an individual patient’s data over time and across systems. With standardized, patient-centric data, artificial intelligence (AI) can help identify measures for intercepting cancer early, reducing disparities in outcomes and using precision medicine to get treatments to patients who will most benefit from them. With standardized data, we can also create a national cancer data (NatCanDa) repository that researchers can use to inform treatment development, and better pool and share our data with the world. Data holds the clues to better treating cancer.

In addition, we have to modernize systems at the NCI, the FDA, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other government agencies that collect cancer-related data. Modernized systems, including outcomes, clinical-trial and claims data, will allow us to use real-world evidence to determine which treatments work best for which types of patients and under which models of care, and the most cost-effective ways of delivering those treatments. This will also serve as the foundation of a coordinated cancer clinical trial infrastructure to support faster and more effective drug development.

Together, these initiatives can set up a national “learning health system” for cancer treatment and prevention, where research informs clinical care, and clinical care informs research. Better data sharing and use of real-world evidence can lay the foundation for similar progress on other diseases, especially complex chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes.

The ability of science to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic shows that, with the right government, scientific, health care, technology and community leadership, we can come together to save lives.

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New top story from Time: These Moms Work as Doctors and Scientists. But They’ve Also Taken On Another Job: Fighting COVID-19 Misinformation Online

https://ift.tt/3tT3UwO Last March, friends and neighbors began stopping Emily Smith in her town outside of Waco, Texas, with questions about the coronavirus. An epidemiologist at Baylor University, Smith knows all too well how viruses are transmitted. But as the wife of a pastor and as a woman of faith, she also holds a trusted position in her community, and she would speak to those who asked about why she personally thought social distancing was a moral choice. As the weeks wore on, the questions kept coming: “What does flatten the curve mean?” “Is it safe for my child to kick a soccer ball outside with a friend?” So she started a Facebook page and called herself the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist. She adopted “Love thy neighbor” as the page’s credo. Smith wrote from the perspective of a scientist but also a wife and mother. She recently explained, for example, why churches should still continue to refrain from holding in-person services even though Texas has lifted i...

Enhancing Safety on Franklin Street

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New top story from Time: Dear Parents, It’s Not Just You. Raising a Teen Now Is Really Hard

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New top story from Time: The United States vs. Billie Holiday Is a Messy But Passionate Tribute to an American Legend

https://ift.tt/3uDiuKn Almost everyone has feelings about Billie Holiday , many of them strong. But no one can own her, and if there’s any supreme conclusion to be drawn from Lee Daniels ’ disorganized but passionate drama The United States vs. Billie Holiday, it’s that. Daniels’ movie focuses on an underexplored angle of Holiday’s life, one that dovetails with all the things we know about her: Holiday had a traumatic childhood—she was raped at age 10. She was repeatedly attracted to controlling, abusive men. Her emotional vulnerability spurred a heroin habit she couldn’t kick. But her personal problems were intensified by a force determined to crush her, specifically the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which pursued her with an obsessive vengeance that surely hastened her death, in 1959 at age 44. Holiday’s drug use wasn’t even the agency’s main problem with her: what truly infuriated them was her refusal to stop performing one of her signature numbers, “Strange Fruit,” a pr...

New top story from Time: ‘We Share the Ideals of Democracy.’ How the Milk Tea Alliance Is Brewing Solidarity Among Activists in Asia and Beyond

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New top story from Time: What Jeff Bezos’ Philanthropy Tells Us About His New Priorities—and What Change They May Bring

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New top story from Time: The Fight for a $15 Minimum Wage Is Our Selma

https://ift.tt/37oF2Ez After the public lynching of George Floyd last summer, his cry of “I can’t breathe” galvanized a movement for Black lives that won majority support among Americans . Floyd wasn’t the only one gasping for breath. While Americans watched a police officer choke the life out of Floyd, we also witnessed Black Americans contracting a deadly respiratory disease at three times the rate of our white neighbors , according to an August report from the National Urban League. The growing public consensus that we as a nation must address systemic racism has led to serious soul-searching in families, churches, universities, corporations and political life. But just as the Selma campaign became a symbol during the civil rights movement of the need for legislation to expand voting rights, the $15 an hour minimum wage proposal in Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan represents the possibility that our government can take decisive action to make racial justice real tod...

New top story from Time: WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Accused of Conspiring With LulzSec and Anonymous Hackers

https://ift.tt/3hZ0cN4 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange conspired with hackers affiliated with the “Anonymous” and “LulzSec” groups, which have been linked to numerous cyber attacks around the world, according to new indictment by the U.S. Justice Department. Assange, who’s detained in the U.K. on a U.S. extradition request, gave the leader of LulzSec a list of targets to hack in 2012 and told this person that the most influential release of hacked materials would be from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency or the New York Times, according to a statement Wednesday from the Justice Department. The LulzSec leader was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the time, according to the statement. An Anonymous and LulzSec-affiliated hacker stole emails through a data breach of an American intelligence consulting company that were published in WikiLeaks, according to the statement. Assange indirectly asked that hacker to spam that company a...

Gene Henderson: Honoring Muni’s First Black Division Manager

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New top story from Time: The Growing Anti-Democratic Threat of Christian Nationalism in the U.S.

https://ift.tt/2RR4IF9 On January 6 th , 2021, insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol in order to “Stop the Steal” and delay the certification of President-elect Biden’s electoral college victory. Christian flags, crosses on t-shirts, “Jesus Saves” signs, and prayers for victory in Jesus’ name were now-famously conspicuous among the mob. By early April, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that lawmakers in 47 states proposed over 350 bills that claim to address voter fraud by limiting mail, early in-person, and Election Day voting through stricter ID requirements, limiting eligibility to vote absentee, or fewer voting hours. The recent bills signed into law by Governors Brian Kemp in Georgia and Ron DeSantis in Florida are just two examples. A similar bill is currently making its way through the Texas State Legislature . [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] For all their rhetoric of ensuring “fair elections” and claims of “proven voter fraud,” one might believe that t...

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