One of the reasons cancer kills 1 in 4 people because we've eradicated lots of things that killed people before they were old enough to develop cancer. If we ever manage to cure cancer (or some cancers, because it's a taxonomy rather than a thing) then people will die of something else. No doubt we'll then wonder why we never spent enough effort curing whatever that is.

There will always be a reason why people die, and it will never feel like we're doing enough.

> The poor man was made into a local Australian celebrity by the media.

I wouldn't say that's quite what happened - I mean, he was explicitly trying to use his profile to raise awareness for brain cancer research so was very public with the progress of his experimental treatment!