My last post commented on the Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood issue. Politics will continue to dominate the allocation of funds from cancer charities. Komen has provided over a billion dollars to cancer research and prevention since its inception. I applaud that. With annual revenues approaching a half billion now, it is the third largest contributor to the war on cancer. The government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants over $5 billion each year, and the American Cancer Society (ACS) spends about $1billion every year respectively on research and patient care. Sadly, only about 1% of the total research projects funded annually goes for anything other than the endless search for better drugs, better radiation, and better surgery. This is how we have been fighting cancer for over a half century with 99% of every tax and donation dollar each of us provides. Yet, that remaining 1% going to research complementary therapies has proven relatively more effective that anything conventional medicine is doing.

I will begin this post with a disclaimer. I support any and all cancer research and education. Every stone should be turned, every ground broken, every avenue explored, and every possibility made known publicly in order to declare victory over this worst health issue of modern society. My objective is to obtain a fair and balanced approach to research and education through greater recognition of the potential of integrative medicine. Funding allocation for the war on cancer in the U.S. is far from balanced, and it is due to one universal cause—politics. That fact has been confirmed perhaps no more clearly than in the past week’s firestorm involving the Susan G. Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood.