A better idea would be to stop cancer before people get it. But industry wouldn't make their sinful profits on prevention. There is no notion so flawed that society will not, at some time, adopt it as a universal truth.
Few misconceptions are as widespread as the idea that the war against cancer is being won.
It's hardly surprising, for scarcely a week goes by without a promise that deliverance is just around the corner. Yesterday, for example, we learnt that a new injection might cure lymphomas. The day before, the government announced that a further 90m would help to eliminate intestinal tumours. Cancer, most commentators agree, is all but dead. So it's perplexing to discover that cancer in industrialised countries is not falling, but rising.