Statism also includes ... BORDERS. I hope these libertarian types love Mexican food.

The vast majority of cancer research in general and especially research into cancer cures is done at academic institutions by investigators who use NIH or other public funding to do their OWN non-profit work which is peer reviewed and published in easily accessible periodicals (see http://www.pubmed.gov). Academics aren't out for money really, so much as they are out for fame and...well, good ole' fashioned Hero status. Short-term treatments are money. We touch on them, but more often, companies go for that sorta thing. CURES are FAME. Academics want to be remembered. They want Nobel prizes. If this thing were really a surefire cure, the community would have jumped on it, published like crazy on it, praised it, and then started to try to improve on it. They didn't.

The media... especially the 24hour type... loves to take a single lab's work and take it as gospel if it's particularly provocative or say if it's a "guaranteed cure that the evil "them" don't want you to know about". Well, often it ain't, brother.

The cancer research community is simply too large for any sort of conspiracy to take hold. We're not talking some single company or even one single country, we're talking thousands upon thousands of Ph.D.s and aspiring future Ph.D.s who'd die for a chance to be a hero and cure a major disease. Heck, I'd give both legs and an arm for a first publication of a real cure (not exaggerating). Anyone would. That's basically the whole purpose of our careers! If you get one MAJOR discovery like that, you can retire a happy man and famous one to boot.

On top of that, we can be kinda competitive about what's really good data and what's not. If we see a half-good study on a seriously promising drug/cure/whatever, more often then not, MANY labs will flood the journals with their own studies on that drug/etc and its workings/failings to either get a piece of pie or to be a part of the proper debunking of the myth. We love that sorta thing. We live for propping what's good and stomping what's not.

(plus, withe a cure discovered or perfected, you'd get any grant you want for the rest of your life with that sorta clout)

Easy street AND a hero? I'll take it. Screw your quiet money.