Ya, Big Oil is one of the most notorious for eliminating competition. There are probably an entire handful of better methods of fuel or fuel usage than what we have today, but it's less profitable for Big Oil, so they buy it out or... whatever they have to do.

Also, roger on the cancer not being a virus. It's actually really simple.

cancer. n.
1)Any of various malignant neoplasms characterized by the proliferation of anaplastic cells that tend to invade surrounding tissue and metastasize to new body sites.
2)The pathological condition characterized by such growths.

Cancer is when an error appears in a cell altering its actions. The cell is usually nonfunctional and replicates quickly (i.e. tumor).

While some idiot may have written this article and phrased that aspect wrong, it's likely that this is all made up. I don't doubt that certain people would take such actions against advancement of this calibur at all, however. I'm just going to assume that this instance (based soley on the reference of cancer being a virus) is untrue.

What is it they say about silence being golden?