Are we Fighting Cancer the Right Way?

The Inquiry

• Episode: Are we Fighting Cancer the Right Way?
• Website: The Inquiry
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029399x/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:49:27
• Published: 2016-05-31 03:06

The World Health Organisation says the number of cancer cases will rise by 70% over the next 20 years. A huge amount of effort and money is spent fighting the disease. But are we getting that fight right? In this special hour-long edition of The Inquiry four expert witnesses tell us new ideas are being stifled, that there is not enough money being spent on drugs to treat early-stage cancer and that we are not doing enough to stop people from getting cancer in the first place. We put that evidence to someone in a position to do something about it - Dr Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, the world's largest biomedical research agency, with a budget of $32 billion.

(Photo: Lab Technician preparing protein. Credit: Reuters)