President Joe Biden promised to imbue the fight against cancer with a fierce sense of urgency as he relaunched a moonshot effort aimed at halving the disease’s death rate in 25 years.
“We can end cancer as we know it,” he said Wednesday at the White House. “Let there be no doubt, this is a presidential, White House priority, period.”
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For Biden, this second moonshot project could usher in “an American moment” to “prove to ourselves and prove to the world we can do really big things,” though he stopped short of talking about a cure.
“This will be bipartisan,” he said, citing past cooperation over research funding. “This will bring the country together and, quite frankly, other nations as well.”
Biden also announced a national cancer screening call to action on Wednesday after more than 9 million were skipped during the last two years because of the pandemic.
This moonshot iteration incorporates a White House Cancer Cabinet, with Biden imploring Congress to support his proposed Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health within the National Institutes of Health.
First lady Jill Biden introduced Vice President Kamala Harris at Wednesday’s East Room event. But first, she recalled how cancer stole the president’s and her “joy” after their eldest son Beau died from glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, in 2015 when he was 46 years of age. Beau’s oncologist was in attendance on Wednesday, too.
Harris spoke of her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris succumbing to colon cancer in 2009 at the age of 70.
“My whole life I stood witness as my mother worked to end breast cancer,” she said of the late scientist. “Today, we are closer than we have ever been.”
Biden’s first moonshot was launched during the final year of former President Barack Obama’s administration. Its objective was to notch a decade of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention research progress in half that time.
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Biden then founded the Biden Cancer Initiative as a private citizen to encourage research collaboration, as well as improve patient care. That project was paused for Biden’s presidential campaign to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.
