US President Joe Biden relaunches 'Cancer Moonshot'; aims to cut deaths by 50% in 25 yrs

United States President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced the relaunch of the “cancer moonshot” effort of the government in a White House ceremony. He set a 25-year-timeline to reduce the cancer death rate by 50%. Addressing a crowd of lawmakers, administration officials, researchers among others, Biden called the measure to bring down cancer fatalities as an “American moment”. White House factsheet on ‘Cancer Moonshot’ stated that Biden is ‘reigniting’ the initiative with “renewed White House leadership of this effort.”

At the event, Biden said, “This can really be an American moment that proves to ourselves and, quite frankly, to the world that we can do really big things.”

‘Cancer Moonshot’ is an initiative that Biden started as the US Vice President under former US President Barack Obama administration, with an aim to eradicate the disease. It is to note here that the 46th US President’s son, Beau died of brain cancer on 30 May 2015 at the age of 46. In the Wednesday ceremony deemed to “supercharge” that sam initiative, Biden said, “I committed to this fight when I was Vice President.  It’s one of the reasons why, quite frankly, I ran for President.  Let there be no doubt: Now that I am President, this is a presidential White House priority — period.”

First launched in 2016, cancer moonshot was allocated with $1.8 billion in federal funds spread out over seven years. With scarce left from the original amount, Biden announced the new push more than five decades after former US President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act to eradicate the disease. 

White House personal connections to fight cancer

According to The Associated Press, personal connections to the battle against cancer have been evident throughout the White House event. US First Lady Jill Biden mentioned how the death of Beau from cancer had “stolen our joy” and “left us broken in our grief”. US Vice President Kamala Harris even spoke of how her mother’s work as a cancer researcher had helped “save women’s lives”. 

Meanwhile, the American Cancer Society estimates there will be 1,918,030 new cancer cases and 609,360 deaths due to cancer in 2022. But, with the reignition of Cancer Moonshot, Biden is aiming to save over 300,000 lives annually. Biden administration believes that it can achieve that goal as the age-adjusted death rate has already been reduced roughly by 25% over the past 20 years.

Image: AP