A cure for cancer was found by some researchers at a Canadian university a number of years back, and it also never really saw the light of day. It was even tested years later (very recently) and found to be working properly.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/05/cure-for-cancer-resurfaces-and.html
Why these things don't get more funding to be worked on and pushed through to help save millions of lives? No idea.
Probably because in all honesty, the last thing we really need is more old people living, costing us more money. I hate to sound like an asshole, but the amount of money we spend (because they can't afford it) on elderly people every year to keep them alive for a few months longer at a time is absolutely ridiculously expensive. We either need to learn when to pull the plug and stop providing free care to these old people or we need to hurry up and figure out how to make ourselves immortal beings.
Problem with doing the latter is we'll either overpopulate too quickly, or we won't have kids and new life will hardly ever see the world.
/running off topic.
