> The cancer death rate has not budged that much in 40 years. Survivability has extended, absolutely, and that is worth something, but not more than a few years

> The cancer death rate has not budged that much in 40 years. Survivability has extended, absolutely, and that is worth something, but not more than a few years. Compared to AIDS, a disease also without a real cure but that has extended survivability by decades this is unacceptable. Ignoring the fact that cancer is a much harder problem than HIV, extending survivability is how the cancer death rate changes. Everyone who doesn't die by other causes would eventually get cancer because DNA replication can only happen so many times before accumulated replication errors trigger it. In a sense, curing HIV means more people will die of cancer (other things equal). Also, cancer is not one thing. You have a particular type (like NSCLC), but also your particular genetic mutations may be unique or nearly so, affecting different combinations of oncogenes and tumor suppressors in different ways. This makes it extremely difficult to treat. Even broadly useful approaches like cancer immunology work better for some than others. > There is an old joke about how many white upper middle class cancer patients does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two, one to do it, and the other to write a book about it. I go back and forth about whether that joke is inappropriate,... IDK about inappropriate, but maybe find an outlet for your anger other than cancer patients?