[9] Research in 2014 led by Elena Semino, a professor of linguistics at Lancaster University, alongside palliative care specialists, based on 1.5 million words of discussion, led Semino to say, "We have enough evidence to suggest that battle metaphors are sufficiently negative for enough people that they shouldn't be imposed on anyone".
[10] In a study conducted in 2003 stated that patients using war-related terminology to describe their breast cancer had higher rates of depression and "poorer quality of life".
[11] In a 2014 article in The Guardian titled "Having cancer is not a fight or a battle", physician Kate Granger, who was diagnosed with desmoplastic small-round-cell tumor (a type of sarcoma), explains how the use of military language, whilst perhaps aiming to instil a sense of positivity, can have the opposite effect.
[14][6] The term "journey with cancer" has been proposed to replace the war metaphors due to both help with the visualization of the disease and more gentleness for patients.
[15] Sick Kids Hospital in Canada spent $2 million on an advertising campaign depicting children as warriors clad in armor with weapons.
[22] The use of war metaphors spread during the COVID-19 epidemic, in which healthcare workers were described as "brave heroes", and those affected by coronavirus as "victims".