On Radio 4's You and Yours programme today, there was a discussion about a new fundraising advert for cancer research which is causing controversy.

See You and Yours webpage. One of the interviewees was a spokesperson for Cancer Research UK, who was urging listeners to make donations to that charity and claiming that the money donated would do a lot of good. I take leave to doubt that.

On Tuesday, 20 November 2007, the BBC News website carried a report about a File on 4 investigation into cancer research wasting vast amounts of donated money and taxpayers' money on worthless studies.

Extracts from that webpage:

"Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.

File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.

It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells."

"Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme."

It's a pity You and Yours's Julian Worricker did not take the opportunity to bring up Cancer Research's colossal careless squandering of those £millions of cancer charity donations on worthless cancer studies, and to remind listeners of that past, inexcusable waste.