No one ever considers "how likely are <lasers> actually going to be better than using high frequency radiation we already have? How much time is this really going to buy a patient even if this is a better method?".

You can't know such things beforehand. That's why they call it research. Look at a central technique of molecular biology like the usage of monoclonal antibodies.

The funding to develop the technique came from cancer research. People hoped it would be a way good way to kill cancer cells. They didn't had the success with cancers cells that they hoped for. On the other hand molecular biology would be a lot less productive if we didn't have monoclonal antibodies.

Doing basic research with near infrared lasers and cancer is similar.

And there is money going to this idea - but it's having to compete with 1000 other methods that don't have the potential to actually kill every tumor cell in a patient and cure them.

That's false. Even today some cancer patients get cured from their cancer by taking big pharma drugs.

But a molecular machine, composed of mostly organic protein based parts, that detects bad mRNAs and kills the cell is an idea that WILL work. It DOES work in rats.

If there's enough funding for such an idea to make it work in rats in the current system, doesn't that negate your central point? If people in academia make it works in rats, taking it from working in rats to working in humans is the job of biotech or bigpharma. If bigpharma thinks that such an idea is really promising they could invest billions into the idea and attack the problem systematically.