President Biden announced Saturday a new program and funding for research on cancer surgeries as part of his administration’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, aimed at reducing cancer deaths.
“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 US Navy will begin a program to train Indo-Pacific counterparts in conducting cervical cancer screening and vaccination so we could reach every woman in the region and it matters, folks,” Biden said in a joint meeting and dinner with the leaders of Australia, Japan and India.
Biden had invited the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) members to his home state of Delaware.
The president’s son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in 2015. Biden began his remarks with a story about how he had promised Beau, whom the president noted was dying at the time, that he would stay involved with cancer research.
Last month, the president and first lady Jill Biden traveled to Louisiana to deliver remarks about how funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is being used to treat and detect cancer as part of the White House’s Cancer Moonshot effort.
The president had relaunched the Moonshot initiative in February 2022, with the goal of cutting cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years, and improving the lives of caregivers and cancer survivors.
Last year, The White House announced it would provide $240 million to researchers and innovators working on cancer-related projects through ARPA-H funding to advance the Moonshot effort.