Poll: Many See Progress In Cancer Fight

CBS News/NYT Survey: Majority Believes Progress Has Been Made In Fighting Disease, But Some Say Not Enough Is Being Spent

(CBS)  A majority of Americans believe that at least some progress has been made over the last 30 years in finding a cure for cancer, a new CBS News/New York Times survey finds.

Roughly one in three, however, feel that the federal government spends too little on cancer research compared with other medical research. Less than one in ten say the government spends too much.

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Read The Complete Poll (PDF)

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Six in 10 Americans say there has been at least some progress in finding a cure for the disease, including 30 percent who say “a lot” of progress has been made. Twenty-one percent say little to no progress has been made.

Meanwhile, thirty-four percent say the government is spending too little on cancer research compared to other medical research. Another thirty-four percent say the government is spending the right amount. Just seven percent say the government spends too much. The remaining twenty-five percent say they don't know.

Older Americans are more likely than younger people to say that progress has been made on discovering a cure for cancer, as are people with relatively high levels of education.

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This poll was conducted among a random sample of 998 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone April 1-5, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

[whitemale08]

We wouldn't have all of these cancers' in the first place if we didn't pollute our water, put plastic synthetics into our food and so on.

[knyghtwolf]

Can anyone tell me where to send donations to the Smallpox Society? As long as there is a JOB in these "foundations", there will never be a "cure"....too much money to be made, jobs to research locked in, mouths to feed, palms to grease, political affiliations to schmooze. ALL non-profit groups have employees to take care of so as long as there is money to be made, the "cure for cancer" will be nothing more than a dream.

[longtree-2009]

horse manure. there is no progress. the first death of cancer known in my family is nearly 50 years ago. there are a few more treatments today but no cure. one wonders if there is more money to be made by NOT finding a cure than finding one. wonder how many billions have been donated to cancer research, how many grants and etc.? for example, polio. once a cure was found for polio, the donations stopped and medical personnel, scientists had to find other employment. organizations in place for donations and so forth, simply disappeared. there is money to be made in searching for a cure, NOT finding one. another example is AIDS which has been around since about the late 60s, early 70s. no cure for AIDs, lots of treatments, but millions, billions in donations. some entity, investors, somebody, is making big bucks off of research to find a cure.