Cuts to medical research?

Today thousands turned out to rally against the speculated cuts of up to $400m to medical research. Well you know where I stand. Often what doctors can do is limited by advances on the bench. Think penicillin.

For all we know, breaththroughs that can change millions of lives are just around the corner. Professor Sharon Lewin reckons a cure for AIDS will be found by 2020 (smh).

More funding is actually needed. In 2010, NHMRC could only fund around 34% of projects judged worthy of funding. Whilst 1488 worthy projects went unfunded. It is especially alarming to note that 204 worthy projects by "new investigators" were unfunded in 2009 and 2010 (source).

Beyond the news reports, Cuts and Bruises by Jo Chandler from The Age gave me a heartening account of the lives of medical researchers. I swear they don't get nearly as much credit as they derserve.

Update:
Get real, medical researchers: nobody deserves a bottomless pit of money is a piece of dissenting voice written by Ryan Meyer, an American visiting fellow at Melbourne Uni who looks at "the relationship between social problems and scientific research".  His two points of argument were "profit = health?" and "medical research = better health?" Now, hold your horses because he was quite rational in his questioning the framework in which the rumoured cuts are being debated.