Pancreatic Cancer: Good News and Bad

It appears that a high-school student may have come up with an inexpensive, accurate and early method for detecting pancreatic cancer:

"Jack Andraka [has] developed a simple dip-stick test for levels of mesothelin, a biomarker for early stage pancreatic cancer found in blood and urine ... His novel patent-pending sensor has proved to be 28 times faster, 28 times less expensive, and over 100 times more sensitive than current tests."

This is pretty important stuff: the disease kills over 95% of its victims, usually because it's difficult to detect in its early (more treatable) stages. Being able to catch it early on would be a real boon.

That's the good news.

The bad news, of course, is that The ObamaTax promises to severely limit additional research, let alone development of this new tech:

"As of Jan.1, Obamacare imposes a new tax of 2.3 percent on medical device manufacturers ... The tax is imposed on gross sales -- even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year."

And since we're already seeing med-tech companies rapidly downsizing as a result of that tax, it's no sure thing that young Jack's new invention will ever see the light of day.

Too bad, that.