Why does prostate cancer only get 2-5% of funding breast cancer gets?

Look up HIGH FREQUENCY waves, detroit free press to treat prostate cancer- read about that, it’s brand new.

Look up White Button Mushrooms to lower your PSA, I m taking an extract 500mg./ day to keep mine low. Mix it with coffee / hot tea.

@vancouverislandhiker, I don't think funding is a competition of the most deserving. All cancer deserves research funding.

Here are some funding stats:
NCI reports how appropriated funds are spent based on different categories or classifications, including specific cancer sites, cancer types, diseases related to cancer, as well as types of NCI research mechanisms.
https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/budget/fact-book/data/research-funding
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Global funding from 2016-2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00182-1/fulltext

And some Canadian stats: https://www.ccra-acrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2021_CCRS_Infographic_EN.pdf
https://www.ccra-acrc.ca/reports/

One has to be very careful on examining the statistical methodology of these statistics and the confounding factors involved in the statistics within North America. This area of statistical study of funding disparities, is a mathematical science in itself. I started out my conversation by saying "both are hideous diseases requiring attention." I stand by that - all I am advocating is for a sensible look at the disparities between the type of research . I hear the frustration from cancer research people wanting money for research. However, most of the popular and TV commercial supported cancers get all the funding well prostate cancer and others are left without. Unacceptable in my books. Hence I do my best to raise money from corporations to give to the Canadian cancer, Cancer Society, and other groups. What I find surprising is that you have taken approach that it is no competition. I disagree with that. There is vast competition for dollars for research, after talking to cancer, researchers themselves and various laboratories that do research. They compete rigorously for "cancer dollars'. Prostate cancer is getting the short end of the stick( as I view it) , especially if you look at mortality versus funding. However, there are other comparative analysis studies done as well. I personally raised many thousands of dollars for cancer research within my province. About 88% of it went to breast cancer upon my further investigation. About 5% went to Prostate cancer. Next time I raise money which will be in the spring, I will designate it on some of the underfunded cancers and research such as prostate cancer and various other cancers that do not get the high profile or TV commercials...and consequently, the funding for research .

@vancouverislandhiker, I also wanted to mention that it is still October and you are likely seeing the results of pink washing. There is a significant increase in advertising - some legit, others less so - in support of breast cancer because October is breast cancer awareness month (and for liver cancer by the way).

Here's a listing of all the awareness months https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/awareness-months/

September is traditionally prostate cancer awareness month, however, you may see more evidence of prostate cancer research awareness in November because of Movember.

Movember started in Australia and has since moved around the world to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues, starting with prostate cancer and expanding to men's mental health, testicular cancer and more.

Here's more information:
Australia https://au.movember.com/
Canada https://ca.movember.com/
USA https://us.movember.com/
All countries https://www.movember.com/?reset=1

This might be a place to find out how you can help change the paradigm.

How would you align cancer research funding . Of course, and I will reiterate, any cancer is hideous and yes, all deserve funding. But obviously when you target dollars to funding, there must be some rationale. Agreed? What would be your rationale for funding? Mortality rates? Complexity? Frequency of disease? When I talk to the people that do prostate cancer research, they are very frustrated that they get bypassed quite frequently. What they are advocating for, and I am advocating for is a wholesome second look at how we provide funding for prostate cancer. More men die of prostate cancer than people die of breast cancer in North America, however, funding is not aligned with respect to mortality, frequency, or other factors. How is money aligned in North America and does it have a regionality to it? Does it have a gender bias to it? Does it have other hurdles that we can make funding more effective and efficient and targeting the quickest wins for the most amount of people? Complex questions and complex studies. However, the underline denominator is the prostate cancer does not get the appropriate funding that it should, from my studies . I have yet to see a Canadian commercial on TV, for awareness or otherwise .... etc . These are tough questions and I certainly would like to hear from our community and their experience based on the aforementioned. Thank you for your concern. James on Vancouver Island.

Oh yes, I completely agree that there is a fierce competition for donation and research dollars. No doubt about that.

My point is that there should be no competition as to which cancer is more deserving of attention, resources and research. We agree there too. There is most definitely no competition between cancers here on Mayo Clinic Connect 🙂 We're here to provide connection and support for all cancers....

Thank you for the hyperlinks. I am currently courting a few corporations and hopefully we'll get a substantial amount of money for cancer research through them( fingers crossed) . One Charter Bank is interested in creating some sort of scale of funding gifts/donations between the top 10 most frequent type of cancers diagnosed in Canada. I leave it up to them to decide on how they want to allocate the money, but I certainly advocate for the prostate cancer people the best I can in speaking to them. The Bank told me that donation money is very competitive , and they cant give to every organization, but Cancer groups is a favourite of theirs ! I simply tell them that more men die of prostate cancer each year than people die of breast cancer each year, and encourage them to look into the issues of Freq. versus Mortality and other ratio's too . I make sure to say "every Cancer patient deserves research dollars and fairness" ...then I leave it with them . With more funding and awareness we can take that role of this investigation to a new level. We can't forget about the c- rectal cancer, or various other types of cancers, im sure you agree. They are all hideous, hence my involvement since an early age in raising money for cancer awareness and expansion of research in various other diseases besides and beyond cancer. However, one glaring vacuous hole is the amount of funding that prostate cancer gets in comparison to the mortality rates, and other cancers and other. One positive point here is that one of the cities close by that I ask for donations from, gave all of their donations to the breast cancer foundation, I congratulated them for that and insured them that every taxpayers dollar would be well spent there. I encouraged them to give a little bit out of that am to Prostate cancer and maybe even colon cancer research and other cancers next year. When we look at breast cancer and prostate cancer. They are both glandular cancers. Talking to the researchers, there are a group of researchers that say one will benefit the other in some ways as both are glandular in nature. Therefore, some scientists believe that these cancer types that develop in glands are/could be interchangeable, in some aspects.

Sorry @vancouverislandhiker, but I think you've got really inaccurate numbers (at least when I look at the USA). On average, breast cancer kills more people in the USA each year than prostate cancer (by 20%). Further, looking at the National Cancer Institue funding stats Colleen posted on her first link it appears fairly constant that prostate cancer research funding is about 50% that of breast cancer research funding. However, further inspection reveals that the total funding for ovarian and uterine cancer deaths (solely female afflictions) is about 50% of prostate cancer research even though total ovarian and uterine cancer deaths are about 75% of male deaths from prostate cancer. So I don't see a gross imbalance here (except maybe for uterine cancer which has very little funding at all compared to the number of women it kills each year). Rather I suspect the funding allocation is probably a complicated topic dependent on many factors.
Here's the USA cancer numbers: https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/common.html

100% in agreement Miss Young - all cancer patients deserve respect, support and quality care. What I advocate for is more money into research given mortality and other drivers. When I ask large corporate donors on why they gave money to this group or that group, it is interesting to hear the rationale. From a donor standpoint, there is definitely a lack of understanding on where to put this money and where it could benefit the most, given the limited amounts of donations . Last winter I was able to do some significant fundraisers for prostate cancer, breast, cancer, colon cancer, and other awareness campaigns in the Philippines. The people in the smaller villages are basically left without medical care or any form of awareness. With prostate cancer, you cannot wait until you get neurological symptoms before you start treating it. Your best open window of opportunity is before you get the symptoms. Dr's here are coached not to give a PSA test unless there is 'direct and substantial urological issues ' with the patient . This, of course , is cause for concern !, as your best treatment window, I am told from the Urologists, presents itself while there is no urological issues. In the Republic of the Philippines (RP) I raise enough money to get a specific type of machine for breast cancer imaging and also I raised enough money to get some advertising awareness and free PSA checks for men in the provinces- forgotten people for the most part. From my memory, I got the PSA test down to about $12.84 Canadian. Small price to pay for early detection. We will be able to test thousands and thousands of men in this campaign I hope. The real problem is if their PSA is over 4.0 and the urologist wants to proceed with some sort of corrective care, Phil health will only pay for approximately 80% of the surgery. Also, a concern of mine is money and corruption in the Philippines, but that is a long and another story for a later date. I have much more work to do in the Philippines as well as some other deserving countries that I'm working on as well. I have made it my life effort to make people aware of various types of cancers and to raise money for early detection and cancer care. It's truly amazing, as a sidenote, the culture in the Philippines is to stay away from hospitals and doctors as much as possible so, we had to get some friendly faces on posters and very encouraging statements to try and get these men and women into the clinics for exams. Next time I'm over in the Philippines, I want to get some meetings with Phil Health , which is the government insurer, to see if we can do something similar to their program with tuberculosis. Their tuberculosis program is to be commended. It is free, and testing is free at any rural clinic or hospital.They have an excellent screening program for tuberculosis and care and I would like to ask them if they could do that for prostate cancer, breast, cancer, colon cancer and heart, and stroke issues( which is very common amongst the people in the archipelago, mainly due to the rice diet, I think ! Tasty rice for sure , but very meal leads to diabetes as well as other factors.). It's quite amazing that the climate is one of the best to grow vegetables, fruits, as well as other things .... but Rice is the staple of Course , and vegetables and fruits are not eaten as much as it should be. Probably a lack of that education is also needed.). Actually I grew up there as a 'foreigner' kid, hence I know their diet well. God bless you all. James .