Biden offers new details in Cancer Moonshot initiative as part of final months' agenda

When he announced his withdrawal from his re-election campaign back in July, President Joe Biden pledged to make the most of his remaining time in office, pursuing policy objectives championed since the start of his term.

Judging by an announcement he made on Saturday, it appears that a revival of the Biden administration's Cancer Moonshot initiative will be among his top priorities before department D.C. in January of 2025, as The Hill reports.

Biden announces refocused initiative

It was during a joint meeting and dinner held by Biden for the leaders of Australia, Japan, and India that the president offered some new details about his plans to foster new progress within the initiative launched back in February of 2022.

Biden said, “So I'm proud to announce that our four countries, the leaders behind me, and many organizations here today are committing over $150 million for HPV, HPV screening and therapeutics, and next year, doctors and nurses in the U.S. Navy will begin a program to train Indo-Pacific counterparts in conducting cervical cancer screening and vaccination so we could reach every women in the region, and it matters, folks.”

The president's Saturday announcement brought to mind for many a pledge he revealed he made to his son, Beau Biden, who died from brain cancer several years ago.

Prior to Beau Biden's death, Joe Biden promised his son that he would remain active in promoting and facilitating cancer research, and this initiative appears to be in furtherance of that vow.

First lady Jill Biden has also been part of the administration's push to advance cancer research during her husband's term in office, and she recently traveled with the president to Louisiana, where she spoke about the Cancer Moonshot has used funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to help further detection and treatment programs and to meet the goal of slashing cancer deaths in half in the next 25 years.

Building on prior progress

Biden's Saturday statement follows a significant announcement made in October of last year of a massive influx of funding concentrated on early detection and treatment, as the Washington Examiner reported at the time.

The new injection of funding was to be made through ARPA-H and projections indicated that it would amount to nearly $115 million distributed across three new research programs centered at a trio of universities.

That news came in the wake of a meeting of Biden's so-called Cancer Cabinet in which an update was delivered on the administration's progress toward its goal to “end cancer as we know it.”

Biden said at the time, “The goal was to mobilize a whole-of-country effort to cut American cancer deaths in half in the next 25 years -- or sooner, God willing -- and to boost support for patients and families in the process.”

Whether one agrees with much else Biden has done during his tenure in the Oval Office, his commitment to eradicating the scourge of cancer is undeniably admirable, and any strides made toward that objective would surely be welcomed by all.