Biden aims to reduce cancer deaths by 50% over next 25yrs

Washington: President Joe Biden on Wednesday set a 25-year timeline to cut in half the cancer death rate, a lofty but perhaps unrealistic goal that is meant to “supercharge” an initiative started when he was vice president to eradicate the disease that killed his older son, Beau. “This can really be an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things,” Biden told a crowd of lawmakers, administration officials, researchers and others at the White House. The new push, which comes without any new money, arrives more than 50 years after President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act and launched a war on the disease. The benefits of that act were also seen in areas outside of cancer, such as the vaccines developed to combat the coronavirus. Personal connections to the fight against cancer were evident throughout the White House event. First lady Jill Biden spoke of how the death of Beau from brain cancer in 2015 had “stolen our joy” and “left us broken in our grief.” Vice President Kamala Harris spoke of how her mother’s work as a cancer researcher had helped “save women’s lives.” (AP)