https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/the-cancer-industry-hype-vs-reality/

Cancer has spawned a huge industrial complex involving government agencies, pharmaceutical and biomedical firms, hospitals and clinics, universities, professional societies, nonprofit foundations and media. The costs of cancer care have surged 40 percent in the last decade, from $125 billion in 2010 to $175 billion in 2020 (projected).

Research funding has also surged. The budget of the National Cancer Institute, a federal agency founded in 1937, now totals over $6 billion/year. That is a fraction of the total spent on research by nonprofit foundations ($6 billion a year, according to 2019 study), private firms and other government agencies. Total research spending since Richard Nixon declared a “war on cancer” in 1971 exceeds a quarter trillion dollars, according to a 2016 estimate.

Cancer-industry boosters claim that investments in research, testing and treatment have led to “incredible progress” and millions of “cancer deaths averted,” as the homepage of the American Cancer Society, a nonprofit that receives money from biomedical firms, puts it. A 2016 study found that cancer experts and the media often describe new treatments with terms such as “breakthrough,” “game changer,” “miracle,” “cure,” “home run,” “revolutionary,” “transformative,” “life saver,” “groundbreaking” and “marvel.”

There are more than 1,200 accredited cancer centers in the U.S. They spent $173 million on television and magazine ads directed at the public in 2014, according to a 2018 study, and 43 of the 48 top spenders “deceptively promot[ed] atypical patient experiences through the use of powerful testimonials.” A 2014 study concluded that cancer centers “frequently promote cancer therapy with emotional appeals that evoke hope and fear while rarely providing information about risks, benefits, costs, or insurance availability.”