People say this because it sounds right and dramatic, but if they knew and understood what cancer is, they'd understand why treating it is so hard.

For those unconvinced, cancer is your own bodies cells gone rogue and trying to kill you. Now, this happens all the time. Luckily, our immune system is awesome and catches it.

Cancer is when your immune system does not catch it. it's invisible, indistinguishable from your skin cells or your lung cells. Its not like the flu or pneumonia - there is no foreign body, there is no attacker. Its you.

So then treatment means we need to kill living, actively reproducing cells in the human body. Well, a fire can do that.

The trick is, how do you kill the cancer cells, which your own immune system cannot even distinguish as cancer cells, but not harm your normal cells?

Turns out that's very hard and very grueling. Chemo is very effective, but you still lose your hair and damage just about all your organs in the process.

And, for the record, we do have "one off" cures for cancer - surgery. Just cut it out. The trouble is cells are microscopic and there's billions of them. Rarely will they be so perfectly contained you can get them all in one go. No, you miss some, and they sit there, growing, until the cancer is detectable again. And they move, they use your own blood and lymphatic system as a highway.

Not if the same thing can't be used to treat them again.

Cynical take, but not wrong.

Though this reads as though the implied message is preaching the suppressed cure conspiracy theory so I'll respond to that interpretation.

What you're missing the competitive factor of this. If your drug strings your patients along while your competitor releases an effective cure, guess who's getting all the business? Look to Sovaldi and Keytruda for recent examples.