ubiquitin, LAB: True, but there are many, many diseases with just as low or lower survival rates and just as much or more suffering. Why single out cancer? Simply because of its pervasive nature? The number of cancer sufferers does not inform the individual person’s suffering (in fact, it may actually help because it would lead to more resources to help)- look me in the eye and tell me that, say, ESRD is not “as bad” as cancer.
But only cancer gets that “bogeyman” distinction.
I mention ESRD because a close relative of mine has suffered from it for many years. When people would talk about it all hush-hush and not say what was actually going on, I was completely freaked out- all those blank spaces in my knowledge were filled with nightmares. As those blank spaces were filled with real, hard fact, it became a lot easier for me to grasp- I now know that as devastating as it is, it’s a part of life, and therefore potentially solvable and finite. They’re not a ghostly shadow, scary and ten times bigger than the thing it makes a shadow of. It’s like Voldemort vs He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (sorry, best example I can think of off the top of my head)- which one is scarier?