President Gives Last SOTU Address, Announces MoonShot Program To Cure Cancer
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In his last State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was determined to find a cure for cancer and that America must use its “spirit of innovation” to combat cancers’ challenges.
Vice President Joe Biden will lead the campaign.
Obama said for the loved ones lost, for family we can save – America should be the country that cures cancer. The program is called “Cancer MoonShot 2020”
Behind him, Biden was smiling. The vice president lost his son Beau, 46, to brain cancer and, when the announcement was made, lawmakers made a standing ovation. After Biden’s son’s death, Biden announced he wouldn’t be running for the presidency in 2016. However, he said he’d stay focused on the rest of his time in office to work on a cure for cancer.
Biden released a blog post during the SOTU, saying the White House was intent on boosting both private and public resources to combat the disease and ensure that information is shared among researchers and medical professionals.
On the matter, Biden said, “It’s personal for me”.
Biden said he’d spend the next 15 months to work as hard as he can to ensure this happens. He’s traveling to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday and will talk with the doctors there. He’ll also be talking with experts about the initiative at the World Economic Forum, which is held in Davos, Switzerland next week.
Biden said he knows both Democrats and Republicans who share the passion he and the president has – to end this fatal disease. He said it was possible to end cancer, once and for all.
The White House’s cancer initiative is to go along with last year’s $2 billion increase in funding that was given to the National Institutes of Health.
Both academic cancer centers and private companies came together earlier this morning to combat against cancer. The Cancer Moonshot 2020 program is geared toward developing a vaccine-based immunotherapy to fight cancer by the decade’s end.
The companies involved are Amgen, Inc., Celgene Corp. and NantKwest Inc.
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