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Cathy Seipp has passed on.

Cathy Seipp, of Cathy's World, and the Nat'l Review Online's "from the Left Coast," has died. Memorial here.

It points out the paradox that research on lung cancer, a major killer (it got my ex a few years ago) is grossly underfunded in proportion to its toll: $950 in research money per lung cancer death, compared to $8800 for breast cancer and $34,000 for AIDS. A product of what happens when the government handles a field: spending is driven by politics and PR, rather than by benefit and harm.

As a friend, with a doctorate in biochemistry, points out, we like to think of cancer like any other illness, with a definite cause. You can't get the flu without exposure to flu viruses. But in fact it's largely pure luck. We're trillions of dividing cells, and some are flawed. Usually the flaw is something fatal to the cell itself, or our immune system hunts it down. Cancer happens when one cell, just one (every case starts with a single cell) has the seven (I think) mutations required, and the immune system doesn't spot it. Exposure to carcinogens isn't required -- they just increase the odds of mutations somewhat. Conversely, you can swim in agent orange daily and not develop it, if the right mutation doesn't happen or your immune system spots the cell and kills it.