Is there any benefit to Americans when their tax dollars are used for cancer research in developing countries?
Dr. Richard Love: There are enormous benefits of many kinds. First, apropos of the subject I was discussing before about the differences in drug metabolism in populations with different genetic background, we can learn more rapidly about efficacy and toxicities of treatments of all kinds by studying them in populations where there are major differences in levels of these parameters in large percentages of the population. Obviously, also these genetic differences are important not only in the native populations in a foreign country but very likely also in immigrant populations from these countries to the United States. There are unique circumstances in other countries that allow us to answer questions that we would like to answer but cannot do so efficiently in the United States, because of the spread of patients across the country, limited participation in clinical trials, and the expensive and large regulatory bureaucracy attendant on working on clinical trials in this country. All th
