WASHINGTON | President Joe Biden is focusing on the policy goals he cares about most now that he is no longer seeking a second term. He will visit New Orleans on Tuesday to promote his administration’s “moonshot” initiative, which aims to dramatically reduce cancer deaths.
The President and First Lady Jill Biden will tour medical facilities and then attend Tulane University to announce $150 million in grants from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to support eight research teams across the country working to help surgeons more successfully remove tumors in cancer patients.
The honored teams include teams from Tulane, Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Washington and Cision Vision in Mountain View, California.
Before he leaves office in January, Biden hopes to move the United States closer to his 2022 goal of reducing cancer deaths in the United States by 50 percent over the next 25 years and improving the lives of caregivers and cancer patients.
According to experts, the goal can be achieved with the appropriate investments.
“We are curing people of diseases that we previously thought were absolutely incurable and unsurvivable,” said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease. This year alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that 2 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed and 611,720 people will die from cancer.
Nevertheless, “if all innovation stopped today and we could only give people access to the innovations we know today, we believe we could reduce cancer mortality by another 20 to 30 percent,” Knudsen said.
For Biden, the issue is so personal that in his recent Oval Office speech marking his exit from the 2024 election campaign, he promised to continue fighting for “my cancer moon flight” so “we can defeat cancer as we know it.”
“Because we can do it,” Biden said at the time.
In his speech, he said that this initiative would be a priority in his final months in office. He would also work to strengthen the economy, defend abortion rights, protect children from gun violence and make changes to the Supreme Court, which he described as “extreme” in its current configuration at a recent event.
Both the president and First Lady Jill Biden have had skin lesions removed in the past that were found to be basal cell carcinoma, a common and easily treatable form of cancer. In 2015, their eldest son Beau died of an aggressive brain tumor at age 46.
Since the president dropped out of the race and supported Vice President Kamala Harris, the public calendar has become much quieter, which is why Tuesday’s trip is a special highlight.
Supporters praised Biden for focusing on cancer, bringing together stakeholders and securing commitments from private companies, nonprofits and patient groups.
They say the extra attention the Biden administration has given to the issue has put the nation on track to cut the cancer mortality rate by at least half and prevent more than four million deaths from the disease by 2047. This has been accomplished by improving access to cancer treatments and reminding people of the importance of recommended screenings, which have suffered a setback during the coronavirus pandemic.
“President Biden’s passion and commitment to this cause have made a tremendous difference for the entire cancer community, including those living with cancer,” said Jon Retzlaff, chief policy officer at the American Association for Cancer Research.
Looking to the future, Retzlaff said, “The most important thing for us is solid, sustainable and predictable annual funding for the National Institutes of Health. And if we can achieve that through the NIH and the National Cancer Institute, the programs created as part of the Cancer Moon flight can continue.”
Biden’s initiatives include changes to make screenings and cancer treatments more accessible to more people, said Knudsen of the American Cancer Society.
For example, Medicare has begun paying for follow-up colonoscopies when a stool test suggests cancer, she said. And Medicare will now also pay for navigation services to guide patients through the maze of their cancer treatment.
“You’ve already paid for cancer research. You’ve already paid for the innovation. Now we’re bringing it to the people,” Knudsen said.
She also said she would welcome a move by the next government to ban menthol cigarettes, which she said could save 654,000 lives over the next 40 years.
Scientists now know that cancer is not a single disease, but hundreds of diseases that respond differently to different treatments. Some cancers have biomarkers that can be targeted with existing drugs to slow tumor growth. Many more targets are still waiting to be discovered.
“We hope that the next administration, whoever it will be, will continue to keep the focus and emphasis on our national commitment to eradicate cancer as we know it,” said Dr. Crystal Denlinger, CEO of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a group of elite cancer centers.
Johnson reported from Washington state.
