President Joe Biden announced plans this Wednesday to decrease the cancer death rate by around 50% over the next 25 years. It is part of the effort to relaunch Cancer Moonshot, the initiative to hasten cancer research and help make treatment affordable and accessible to all cancer patients.
The program was an initiative of the Barack Obama administration and was led by Joe Biden, then vice-president under Obama.
Joe Biden lost his son Beau in 2015 to brain cancer when he was 46. It is something that keeps him and Jill Biden, the first lady, focused on the issue.
Joe Biden said that he was committed to the issue when he was the vice-president. He said that it has become a presidential priority not that he was the President.
There are around 200 types of cancer that are caused by a genetic mutation. While heart disease remains the number one killer, cancer comes a close second in the US. He painted a distinction with the coronavirus saying that while 800,000 Americans died due to the pandemic, 1.2M citizens succumbed to cancer in the same period.
Joe Biden To Install White House Coordinator And Form Cancer Cabined Under Revamped Effort
Under Joe Biden’s revised efforts as president, a new coordinator from the White House will be installed. He has also spoken about forming a cabinet aimed at bringing government agencies and departments together. It will also bring around access to screening for cancer detection.
The White House is also set to host a summit that will bring together participants, set up a website, plus improve upon the cancer conversation series that is underway for the past 6 months. Researchers said that the initiative, started back in 2016, will pave the way for a major shift in cancer research in the US and meet the objectives of the cancer program.
A senior administrative official said that things had changed much on the ground and made it conceivable to go for ambitious goals. He said that the last five years have seen much scientific progress in the field of cancer treatment, including the preventive annual blot tests to screen for the disease.
