Republican Presidential candidate Tommy Thompson pledged today to put America's "vast resources" toward eliminating breast cancer by 2015. His plan includes doubling the NIH budget to $56 billion and establishing $10 million prizes for successful benchmark accomplishments along the way.
Tommy Thompson's motivation to do this is personal, as his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter all suffered from breast cancer.
While his main focus is on curing breast cancer, his plan to double the NIH budget will benefit all conditions that receive funding from the NIH. The $10 million benchmark prizes -- fifteen of them -- will be specific to breast cancer, but the idea could spread to other candidates to sponsor their own pet condition. (Spinal cord injury anyone?)
Thompson's full plan is listed below:
Recruit a successful corporate executive to lead a team of doctors, researchers, nurses and breast cancer victims who will be charged with setting benchmark goals and making recommendations for research funding.
Establish fifteen $10 million prizes for corporations, Universities or research centers that solve benchmark problems related to curing breast cancer.
Double the budget of the National Institute of Health to $56 billion from its current level of $28 billion. Direct the additional funding to worthy public and private research projects.
Travel to key countries in the world recruiting their governments and research universities to join the effort. Tommy Thompson will re-establish America's leadership role and do it with medical and health care breakthroughs.
Create an open source research community on the Internet where research can be organized and discussions can be conducted with experts. This online community will be a centralized repository for research where all of the world’s people can contribute their time, money or expertise toward helping with this global fight.
If this idea sounds good to you, check out his campaign site.
(Note: This is not an endorsement of Thompson by Wired News or me, but I personally endorse the idea of doubling the NIH budget.)
Thompson Pledges End to Breast Cancer During His Presidency [Campaigns & Elections]
