WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced plans to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 per cent over the next 25 years, part of an effort to revive the"Cancer Moonshot" initiative to speed research and make more treatments available.
"I committed to this fight when I was vice president ... let there be no doubt, now that I'm president, this is a presidential White House priority," he said. Biden's new effort will install a White House coordinator, form a cancer cabinet that will bring government departments and agencies together and revive access to cancer screenings. It will also see the White House hosting a summit to bring together stakeholders, launch a website and build on a cancer roundtable conversation series under way over the past six months, the White House said.
"A lot has changed that makes it possible to set really ambitious goals right now," a senior administration official said.