Biden hopes ending cancer can be a 'national purpose' for US
BOSTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday urged Americans to come together for a new “national purpose" — his administration's effort to end cancer "as we know it."
At the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Biden channeled JFK's famed moonshot speech 60 years ago, likening the space race to his own effort and hoping it, too, would galvanize Americans.
“He established a national purpose that could rally the American people and a common cause,” Biden said of Kennedy's space effort, adding that “we can usher in the same unwillingness to postpone.”
Biden hopes to move the U.S. closer to the goal he set in February of cutting U.S. cancer fatalities by 50% over the next 25 years and dramatically improving the lives of caregivers and those suffering from cancer. Experts say the objective is attainable — with adequate investments.
The president called his goal of developing treatments and therapeutics for cancers "bold, ambitious, and I might add, completely doable.”
In his speech, Biden called on the private sector to make drugs more affordable, and data more regularly available. He ticked off medical advancements possible with focused research, funding and data.
And he spoke of a new federally backed study that seeks evidence for using blood tests to screen against multiple cancers — a potential game-changer in diagnostic testing to dramatically improve early detection of cancers.
Danielle Carnival, the White House coordinator for the effort, told The Associated Press that the administration sees huge potential in the commencement of the blood diagnostic study on identifying cancers.
“One of the most promising technologies has been the development of blood tests that offer the promise of detecting multiple cancers in a single blood test and really imagining...
