They are all over Boston; seventy five painted cows on display until labor day in celebration of 75 years of research for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Research is so important in our lives. From a historical perspective Labor Day is typically brings to mind labor unions. Lately researchers have banned together to form unions. They work for years on their research and then come budget cuts. Academics, don’t make as much as their peers in industry who earn two to three times as much. It makes sense that to balance this out, that these innovators ask, don’t cut my research funds and give me decent benefits. It’s not as simple as, if you want all those things, then abandon academia and go work in industry. We need research.
In the days of yore, unions originated to protect workers from long hour and unsafe working conditions. Once unions were in place, corporations were left to increase profits by either lower quality, smaller sizes, additional cost and/or automation. But, how would this work in research? This is an area where you don’t want lower quality. It’s new, so there is no automation. So yes, researchers should have the benefits along with some runway to mess up and start over. And that’s where it gets tricky. I have abandoned more bad ideas than follow through with good ones; but, the bad ideas are what get me to the good ones. Like you can power wash a lot of things, windows should not be one of them, steel wool is great for getting off sticky stuff off things, but not for getting bugs off a car. Just saying.
What happens with research is the pressure for results. The “money” typically isn’t coming from an entity with a scientific approach and maybe numbers get doctored or facts get ignored. Yes, Sacklers , OxyContin and capitalistic greed. False narratives are created to increase profits when you can’t make smaller sizes, lower quality, raise prices and automate. Onto DaVita which tried it in so many ways, a wrongful deaths lawsuits in 2018 ($383.5 million), illegal kickbacks in 2014 ($350 million), a whistleblower lawsuit in 2020 ($495 million.) Dialysis while lifesaving, does not do the complete function of the kidneys. So while this is a company whose main profit comes from their dialysis centers, they position themselves as “kidney research.” This is heartbreaking because the money they have paid in lawsuits could have funded so much research and development for artificial kidneys.
This week, consider the labor of research and it’s importance in our lives. Any research important to you? Consider donating if you don’t already.
Balancing on Unstable Surfaces 