“In the United States we believe that everything is possible,” said the president in Boston, in a speech at the Library dedicated to the assassinated president, after a presentation by the latter’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy.
Taking inspiration from the words of “JFK” on September 12, 1962, when he promised to send a man to the Moon, Biden said he wanted to “organize and measure the best of our energy and our talents to end cancer as we know it, and even to cure cancer once and for all.”
“Cancer (…) doesn’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat. Beating cancer is something we can do together,” she emphasized.
By promising to conquer the Moon, Kennedy had “created a national objective, capable of uniting the American people, and a common cause. And he did it, ”recalled the US president, who wants to reduce cancer-related mortality by 50% in 25 years.
It’s about “increasingly, cancer is not a death sentence but a chronic disease that people can live with,” he said.
This offensive by the US Executive has several facets. For example, it focuses both on the sometimes exorbitant price of treatments, and on the detection and treatment of cancers with the exploration of blood tests and new therapies.
“When they get their diagnosis, the first thing many people think about is ‘How am I going to pay for care? Should I sell the house? Stop paying monthly car payments? Will we be able to pay for the children’s studies?’”, the president pointed out.
The White House recalled having limited to 2,000 dollars per year the amount that many Americans, beneficiaries of the Medicare program, the health insurance system to which those over 65 have access in particular, must pay out of pocket.
However, he said, so far some patients have to fork out thousands of dollars each year for prostate or breast cancer treatments.
– Blood test –
The other great ambition of the US government has to do with the detection and development of new cancer treatments.
The United States launched a large-scale test – first with 24,000 people, with the goal of expanding it to 225,000 – to identify tests capable of detecting one or more cancers from a blood test alone.
Biden also mentioned the possibility of developing less expensive vaccines and therapies: “Imagine, instead of exhausting chemotherapy, a simple blood test or a pill bought at the corner pharmacy instead of invasive treatments and long hospital stays” .
JFK fulfilled his goal of lunar conquest before the end of the decade: on July 21, 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon. The United States is also conducting a return to the Moon program, Artemis.
The fight against cancer is a political goal but also an intimate fight for the American president, whose eldest son, Beau Biden, died of brain cancer in 2015, at the age of 46.
The relationship of the Biden initiative with Kennedy’s lunar program also seeks to draw public attention and settle support for the Democrats before the legislative elections in November, where the Republicans may keep control of Congress, something that would complicate the next two years of the Biden presidency.
– Decree –
Before traveling to Boston, Biden signed an executive order aimed at bolstering efforts by the US biotech sector to take on growing business rivals in China.
The executive order provides federal support for “areas that will define American biotech leadership and our economic competitiveness for decades to come,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters.
The official said that while US biotech research leads the world, industrial applications are increasingly in the hands of other countries.
“Unless we translate biotech innovation into economic and social benefits for all Americans, other countries, including China especially, are aggressively investing in this sector,” posing a “risk,” he warned.
