Revival of Cancer Moonshot initiative announced by President Biden
In February 2022, President Biden announced and laid out an ambitious agenda to boost and speed up the fight against cancer, including a national year of action on cancer screening and a new Cancer Cabinet to drive progress government-wide. President Biden announced a revival of his audacious 2016 initiative - Cancer Moonshot - that is designed to dramatically accelerate progress against cancer.
White House announcement Video: https://www.facebook.com/POTUS/videos/654009072464437
You may read about this Program/initiative here and send your story and ideas to the White House: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cancermoonshot/
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
EDITORS NOTE: The following article was originally printed in USA Today on Feb 2, 2022 and is being posted here as it was initially printed.
President Biden wants to cut the cancer death rate by 50%. Here's how he plans to do it.
The public health lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic opened up new possibilities, making us realize how quickly progress can happen.
Contributors: Dr. Eric S. Lander and Dr. Danielle Carnival
The experience of cancer – of getting a cancer diagnosis, surviving cancer, losing someone to cancer – has touched virtually every American family. So, even as we continue to respond to COVID-19, we must renew our urgency in fighting cancer.
This is personal for us, and for President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden, who lost their son Beau to brain cancer in 2015. The president then led the Cancer Moonshot: an audacious initiative to dramatically accelerate progress against cancer.
Launched in 2016, that effort united Republicans, Democrats, companies, patient groups, universities and more – resulting in a bipartisan $1.8 billion investment in cancer research, collaborations to share data and speed research, and public-private partnerships in drug development and cancer prevention.
Since then, COVID-19 has complicated the cancer fight, causing Americans to miss 9.4 million cancer screenings and untold numbers of treatments to be delayed. Cancer remains a leading cause of death, killing about 600,000 Americans each year.
Goal is faster progress against cancer
At the same time, the scientific gains and the public health lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic opened up new possibilities, making us realize how quickly progress can happen.
For all these reasons, President Biden on Wednesday is reigniting the Cancer Moonshot and setting a new national goal: If we work together, we can cut the death rate from cancer by at least 50% over the next 25 years, and improve patients’ and families’ experience of living with and overcoming cancer.
Having spent our careers in biomedicine, we know bold goals can sometimes sound overhyped. But this isn’t hype. It’s real, well-grounded hope that we can drive even faster progress against cancer.
It’s grounded in America’s progress since 1999 in reducing the death rate from cancer by 27%. Before that, age-adjusted cancer death rates were basically flat. But they started falling because of anti-smoking campaigns, screening technologies like colonoscopies and mammograms, and new scientific game changers like molecularly targeted cancer drugs and cancer immunotherapies.
This hope is also grounded in America’s COVID-19 response, including the rapid development of safe, effective mRNA vaccines and a public health campaign that has delivered 540 million shots. When we put our minds to it, we can make progress faster than we ever thought possible.
What we know of cancer now
We know we can’t magically end all cancer immediately. But, as President Biden has said, we can end cancer as we know it today.
What does that mean?
Today we know cancer as a disease where we often diagnose too late, we have few good ways to prevent, and we have stark inequities in outcomes across races, regions and resources. We know it as a disease where we understand too little about why treatments work for some people but not others, and we lack strategies for developing treatments for some of the more than 200 types of cancer. We know it as a disease where we don’t do enough to help people navigate cancer and its aftermath, and we don’t learn enough from their experiences.
Each area holds possibilities for progress, in science, public health and medical care.
What we can do better
To diagnose cancer sooner: Five years ago, the goal of detecting many cancers at once through simple blood tests was just a dream. Now, new technologies and rigorous clinical trials may put it within reach.
To prevent cancer: Scientists are asking whether mRNA vaccines, like those that teach your body to fight off COVID-19, could also be used to stop cancer cells when they first appear. And we must address environmental exposures that can cause cancer, which particularly affect fence-line communities.
To address inequities in outcome: We must ensure every person and community in America – rural, urban, tribal and everywhere else – has access to cutting-edge cancer diagnostics, therapeutics and clinical trials.
To target treatments effectively: We’re learning more about how people’s genes, immune responses and more affect which treatment combinations work best.
To speed progress against deadly and rare cancers, including childhood cancers: We should invest ferociously in new treatments, and accelerate clinical trials while maintaining safety and effectiveness, as we’ve done with COVID-19.
To support patients, caregivers and survivors: We can help them navigate and overcome cancer’s medical, financial and emotional burdens.
To learn from people’s experiences: Nearly every cancer patient we’ve met wants to help others. Most are glad to share their data with researchers, if it’s easy and respects their privacy.
Because so much can be done, there’s so much reason for hope.
What President Biden is laying out Wednesday – including a national year of action on cancer screening and a new Cancer Cabinet to drive progress governmentwide – is only the beginning. We’re calling on everyone to step up: the scientific and medical community, companies and more.
We also want to keep hearing from patients, caregivers, families, survivors and others directly impacted by cancer. Share your story, suggest ideas or tell us what actions you’ll take at whitehouse.gov/cancer-moonshot.
We’ve seen in the pandemic that when we work together, we can make the impossible possible. Ending cancer as we know it today isn’t easy, but together, we can get it done.
Dr. Eric S. Lander is the president’s science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Dr. Danielle Carnival is the White House Cancer Moonshot coordinator.