KEN BURGER: Where have you gone, Jonas Salk?

There was a time in this country when we got things done. I mean really big, important things.

When Germany and Japan threatened the free world, this nation went from zero-to-victory in four short years, winning a two-front, global war with an all-out effort of government and everyday citizens shouldering the load.

When smallpox ravaged the population, we mobilized and vaccinated.

When polio crippled millions of young Americans, we collected dimes and within a few years Dr. Jonas Salk came up with a miracle vaccine.

When asked if he would patent his discovery and cash in on his work, he declined, saying "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

This was the kind of get-it-done, selfless country we used to be.

Now, not so much.

Feuding fiefdoms

It's been 40 years since Richard Nixon declared war on cancer, the disease that claims more than half a million American lives each year, about 1,500 a day.

When he announced that effort in 1971, many thought it just a matter of time before we rid ourselves of this ravaging plague. Instead, the battle continues and victory is not in sight.

It seems the fight against cancer has gone the way of the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty and the War on Terror; grand ideas that cost lots of money and create huge bureaucracies that eventually segment into feuding fiefdoms.

Over four decades of intense focus on this killer, we've spent hundreds of billions on cancer research and that much more each year on cancer treatments.

We've joined our personal crusades against certain kinds of cancer and done everything possible, riding bikes cross-country, running marathons, playing in golf tournaments, buying ribbons and all sorts of fund-raising activities in hopes of finding the cure.

And yet, in the end, we're still losing.

Big business

I say this out loud for myself and every other person who has known cancer personally, lost family members to the disease, and buried so-called survivors who thought they were cured.

Cancer, in its myriad forms, has proven an insidious assassin that never sleeps and always seeks another sinister way to kill you.

Thus we have thousands of the world's smartest people working on finding the answers. Raising money to keep all this academic and clinical research afloat has become big business. A million people go to work each day in association with cancer research.

But it feels like a 9-5, weekends-off war.

Maybe that's why we haven't won a war in a long time. It seems every time we declare war on something, the effort just morphs into a self-perpetuating industry.

Poverty, drugs and terrorism remain problematic despite our efforts. Entire careers, in fact, come and go without much progress.

During which, it's sad to say, everyday people walk sadly away from gravesides, sobbing, wondering, where have you gone, Jonas Salk?