Biden to announce $150 million in research grants to fight cancer

President Joe Biden is zeroing in on the policy goals closest to his heart now that he's no longer seeking a second term and will visit New Orleans on Tuesday to promote his administration's "moonshot" initiative aiming at dramatically reducing cancer deaths.

"We're curing people of diseases that we previously thought were absolutely intractable and not survivable," said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

Cancer is the second-highest killer of people in the U.S. after heart disease. This year alone, the American Cancer Society estimates that 2 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed and 611,720 people will die of cancer diseases.

Still, "if all innovation ended today and we could just get people access to the innovations that we know about right now, we think we could reduce cancer mortality by another 20 to 30%," Knudsen said.

Spectrum News - Aug. 13, 2024