Breezy Explainer: What is Joe Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” project?

President Joe Biden reintroduced the White House’s “Cancer Moonshot” project on Wednesday by pledging the country to work toward a 50% reduction in cancer-related deaths over the next 25 years. During the Obama administration, a campaign was launched to eradicate a disease that kills more than 600,000 people in the United States each year.

The President however pledged to give the fight against cancer a “fierce feeling of urgency”. Also, a pledge to help cancer patients and their families. Biden appointed Dr. Danielle Carnival of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the White House Cancer Moonshot project coordinator.

“We can do this. I promise you, we can do this. For all those, we lost, for all those we miss. We can end cancer as we know it,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. 

The President also proclaimed openly the arrangement of a “Cancer Cabinet”. It will encompass delegates from various branches. They include Health and Human Services, Defense, Energy and Agriculture, the National Cancer Institute, and others.

Showing acknowledgment towards the doctor, the president said, “That’s the man who spent 18 months trying to save our son’s life. Doctor, I love you.”

Harris discussed her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who succumbed to colon cancer in 2009. “After a lifetime working to end cancer, cancer ended my mother’s life. I will never forget the day that she sat my sister and me down and told us she had been diagnosed with colon cancer. It was one of the worst days of my life.” 

Financing for the Cancer Moonshot

Moreover, Biden prodded Congress to fund his program to solidify the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). It is a new endeavor with intention of fostering innovation in health research with a focus on ailments such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease at first. The President said that the COVID-19 outbreak resulted in Americans missing more than 9 million cancer screenings in the last two years. However, he recommended anyone who had missed their screening contact their doctor as soon as possible to schedule another.

The program’s relaunch on Wednesday would not certainly encompass any fresh funding. Congress approved $1.8 billion in financing for the Cancer Moonshot over seven years in December 2016. With $400 million set up for 2022 and 2023.

On a call with reporters on Tuesday, a senior administration official told that the program’s accomplishment in the first five years has certainly enabled the parliament to set “very ambitious targets” for the future. However medical attainments made in the fight against COVID-19, such as examination of mRNA vaccines, were also spoken of as areas with a lot of capability for combatting cancer, according to the official.

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