8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/ 627,000 mal

8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/ http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/ 627,000 malaria related deaths in 2012: http://www.who.int/gho/malaria/epidemic/deaths/en/ http://www.who.int/gho/malaria/epidemic/deaths/en/ Lack of potable water is a harder one to pin down for things other than childhood mortality, but probably in the low millions per year: http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html Further, cancer research is far from being in the realm of diminishing returns. The next generation of targeted treatments such as immunotherapies, chimeric antigen related approaches, engineered viruses, etc, that work for many different varieties of cancer will be far more effective than today's staples of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.