The National Institutes of Health spend billions of dollars each year on medical research.
The National Cancer Institute spends about 3 percent of its budget, or $76.6 million a year, specifically addressing that question.
By contrast, the National Cancer Institute spent $1 million last year on the educational component of its campaign to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.
The National Institute of Health spent $34,841 per death of Legionnaire's Disease.
That is not much compared with the approximately $27 billion the National Institutes of Health spends each year.
In the 2003 fiscal year, the National Institutes of Health spent an estimated $81.3 million on autism research, compared with $9.6 million in 1993.
The National Institutes of Health is currently spending $10 million in a five-year study to look at the genetic links of the disease.
By contrast, the National Institutes of Health has spent $3.4 billion since the 1980's to develop a vaccine.
By comparison, the National Institutes of Health spent $5.5 billion.
In 2004, the National Institutes of Health spent twice as much on studies done only on women as only on men.