Biden invokes JFK with ‘moonshot’ pitch to halve cancer deaths by 2047
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On the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s famous vow to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s — President Biden re-announced his cancer “moonshot” goal to cut in half deaths from the related diseases by 2047.
Kennedy’s 1962 plan to put a man on the moon was accomplished within seven years.
Achieving longer lifespans is a bipartisan issue — as US life expectancy actually declines. The average American life expectancy decreased by 2.7 years from 2019 to 2021, to 76.1 years, due largely to more drug overdoses and COVID-19 deaths.
On Monday, Biden announced Dr. Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural director of ARPA-H, which has been tasked with studying treatments and potential cures for cancers, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other diseases. He also announced a new National Cancer Institute scholars’ program to provide resources to early-career scientists studying treatments and cures for cancer.
Experts agree it’s far too early to say whether these new blood tests for finding cancer in healthy people will have any effect on cancer deaths. There have been no studies to show they reduce the risk of dying from cancer. Still, they say setting an ambitious goal is important.
Scientists now understand that cancer is not a single disease, but hundreds of diseases that respond differently to different treatments. Some cancers have biomarkers that can be targeted by existing drugs that will slow a tumor’s growth.
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