Subject: Re: As a cancer survivor so far this hits home
How does eliminating whatever LGBTQ funding, that can be identified, diminish the funds available for Cancer Research? If that slice of funding is going into LGBTQ agendas then it isn't getting into Cancer Research

I can tell you exactly how that happens, and it happens for good reasons.

When a pharmaceutical drug trial is run, care must be exercised by the investigators to recruit study subjects representative of a wide range of racial/gender, LGTBTQ populations- not for ANY DEI reasons, but for scientific/ investigative reasons. Why?
Because many pharmaceuticals act differently with males and females. Some interact with certain genetic types differently than with others.

The first thing that comes to mind (remembering back to 1991-2003 when I served on an Institutional Review Board at UTMB and reviewed and discussed about 25 new experimental protocols a month) was the issue of proper dosage). How do they determine proper dosages for males v females? Or even if females or males can safely take a drug, or even whether or not the drug is effective?

Through the various phases of clinical trials.

There are actually drugs that have been discovered to be effective only within a population that shares a specific genetic characteristic.

How are these things discovered- by running the various phases of clinical drug trials and by meticulously analyzing the clinical and statistical results- and by recruiting various study populations large enough to provide statistically significant results.

During the nineties when I served on an IRB, there were large numbers of cancer protocols, but also a large number of HIV/AIDS protocols, and this involved protocols that contained targeted strategies to recruit study subjects within the LGBTQ community and IV drug users. Shock! Scientists are out there recruiting homosexuals to receive study drugs!

Obviously- some genetic characteristics or sexual identities must form the exclusive pool of study subjects for many experimental protocols.

If the underlying disease is sickle cell anemia, only black folks are going to be recruited to be study subjects.
DEI! DEI! DEI!

If the disease is ovarian cancer- only females

Prostate cancer? Only males

So yes, Clinical drug trials involve a LOT of recruiting of various populations and subpopulations, and even having recruitment quotas in order to satisfy the statistical wonks who will reject a protocol if a particular study population is too small to provide a statistically significant conclusion.

Perfect fodder for an ignorant engineer looking for DEI under every bush, particularly an engineer who is a billionaire and thinks of himself as an expert on everything