SO HOW’S THAT WAR ON CANCER GOING? Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe. The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.One major i