Launching cancer moonshot, Biden says politics impeding cure
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vice President Joe Biden, left, listens to Dr. Amy Gutmann, right, speak with Dr. Bruce L. Livine PH.D., center, and Dr. Carl H. June M.D. today in the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA » Vice President Joe Biden launched a “moonshot” initiative Friday to hasten a cure for cancer, aiming to use his final year in office to break down barriers in the medical world he says are holding back progress on eradicating the dreaded disease.
Biden chose Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia as his venue to call attention to the institute’s pioneering efforts on immunotherapy, in which a patient’s own immune system is deployed against cancer cells. After touring the facility’s Center for Advanced Cellular Therapeutics, Biden sat down with doctors, researchers and academics to discuss recent advances.
“You’re on the cusp of some phenomenal breakthroughs,” he said. “In my terms – not your medical terms – we are at an inflection point in the fight against cancer.”
With barely a year left, Biden has yet to lay out exactly what he’ll do that hasn’t been done in the half century since President Richard Nixon declared war on cancer. But Biden said in addition to pushing for more funding, he would use his influence to “break down silos” he says are pervasive throughout the sprawling and fragmented world of cancer.
Since declaring his “moonshot” in October, Biden has been searching for answers about what’s holding back a cure, with all the meticulousness of a physician diagnosing disease. His conclusion: The hold-up, in large part, lies in the cancer world itself.
Meeting with scientists Friday, Biden recalled his grandfather’s adage that the world has three kinds of politics: church politics, labor politics and regular politics.
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“I hope you’re not offended, but there are four kinds of politics in America. There’s cancer politics,” Biden said. He deemed that particular flavor even more vexing than the rest.
But Jim Greenwood, CEO of BIO, which represents the biotech industry, said there’s a reason why organizations developing treatments must keep some information to themselves.
“There are prioprietary interests, and the model for developing drugs in the U.S. is done by the private sector,” Greenwood said. “That means competition, and there’s a lot of benefit to that.”
Still, Biden has described a system in which competition, territorialism and “stove-piping” of information leave researchers and their discoveries cloistered in their own corners. His campaign this year will work to encourage more data-sharing about patient data and treatment outcomes.
“My hope is that I can be a catalyst, to oversimplify it, to get everybody on the same page,” Biden said.
A key focus will be promising advances such as immunotherapy. At the cancer center Biden visited Friday, researchers are exploring what’s known as chimeric antigen receptor technology, in which a patient’s immune cells are engineered outside of their body to hunt for tumors, then infused back into the patient’s body. The White House said 250 patients have been treated with the approach, with early promising results.
Another priority for the vice president is to further “precision medicine,” which personalizes treatments based on the genetic makeup of a patient’s tumors. Cancer researchers who met with Biden recently said he was intrigued by the possibilities for improving prevention and early detection.
Biden planned to continue the effort next week by convening global cancer experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Then he’ll chair a series of meetings with Cabinet secretaries in about ways to boost federal funds.
For Biden, the emotional undertones of his mission are difficult to avoid. After his 46-year-old son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in May, Biden entered a period of painfully public mourning, followed eventually by his decision not to enter the presidential race.
“This is still a blow that he’s still recovering from,” said former Sen. Ted Kaufman, a Biden confidante for many decades. “He’s in his problem-solving mode. He’s more comfortable in this area because of his desire to eliminate this thing that caused him so much damage.”
When Biden, in a Rose Garden speech, announced a bid “to cure cancer,” eyebrows were raised. Some wondered whether Biden was unduly raising expectations.
“I’m an eternal optimist, but I’m not going to go around saying we’re going to cure cancer in five years. That’s just not realistic,” said Dr. George Demetri, a Harvard Medical School professor and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who met with Biden’s staff.
Biden acknowledged that some cancers can’t be cured, insisting he wasn’t naive. But he said he thought it was possible to double the rate of scientific advances.
Because cancer takes hundreds of forms, it can’t be eradicated by any single advance. But immense progress has been made recently. Survival rates for most cancers are increasing, although the American Cancer Society still predicts nearly 1.7 million new cancer cases this year and nearly 600,000 deaths.
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Lederman reported from Washington.
17 responses to “Launching cancer moonshot, Biden says politics impeding cure”
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Sadly there is way to much money in cancer to actually cure it. Cancer politics is right.
Sheriff Joe is actually right this time.
why didn’t Obama appoint Bieden to this 8 years ago? He’s got one year left i noffice, what does he expect to get done. I just don’t think its being taken seriously.
Why? The SOTU speech needed some beef in it, pretend beef in this case due to the short time left for Biden to “cure” cancer. I can just see the desperate speech writers at 3AM pulling their hair out. “Man, we’re empty on the grand positive vision thing”. “I got it. We cure cancer”.
Willing to bet this is how it went down.
I’m with you, but where’s the beef? Then again, BHO has stemmed the rise of the oceans and begun to heal the planet.
There is way too much money in pharmaceutical companies to ever divulge a cure. If that was to happen, they would easily go under and sadly the investors will never let that happen.
As for the politicians, believe me, they have their greedy hands out taking whatever they can to never allow a cure to take place. Not to mention, the impact of people living much longer and stronger causing a HUGE strain on an already antiquated Social Security and Medicare system!
As always it’s about the money. Big pharma has no desire to end cancer, only to maintain it… 🙁
Big Pharm would score a touchdown with a cure for cancer.
I think a lot of money for research comes from the feds. Then the company gets to claim a patent on the medicine and make boat loads of money. No patent, or a much shorter one seems like a good idea.
I’m sure moonshot is exactly the analogy the WH was hoping for, but assigning the VP in the last year of the administration is pathetic.
I doubt his ability to get this done in a year. This is about money, not a cure. Whomever creates the drug to cure this disease will have a lot of money. Its not in the nature of business to share ideas and do it right. they all want the biggest piece of the pie. If this is possible, I think that Biden should continue his battle to find a cure with the help of Government. To get to this point is pathetic. Our loved ones are dying, what are these researchers thinking!
Sadly, it was my thought also. Waiting until the last year of the administration to task the VP with what might become one of the most significant jobs in our (human) history seems to come a little late. Of course there have been some recent break-throughs in immune therapy. (various cancerous cells have a remarkable ability to mask themselves to our immune systems. To be able to overcome that is potentially huge.) I think almost everyone knows someone who fell victim to a cancer and I believe we all want to see significant progress in treatment and cure. These aren’t Republican diseases, nor are the Democratic or even Libertarian afflictions. They are common to all of us and we all have a stake in these efforts.
A lot of these remarks resemble the old classics:
It is possible to build a car that will run on water and nothing else but the big oil companies are keeping it secret.
There is a light bulb that lasts forever, but the light bulb companies are keeping it a secret.
etc.
It is my impression that the great medical breakthroughs (vaccinations, antibiotics, X-rays etc.) were quickly used and pursued without hesitation.
If Vice President Biden has any substantive comments on how to cure cancer, I am sure it would be welcomed.
Some of these comments make me wish obama had tasked Biden to come up with a cure for insane conspiracy theorists.
A cure for all kinds of cancer will never be found. If it was a lot of people would lose their funding and jobs. Cancer is a wonderful money tree for pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, nurses, doctors, lawyers, politicians, charity funds, and so on. A doctor makes more money treating the symptoms over and over again rather than curing the disease. They tell you to come in every 6 months even though there is nothing you’re complaining about. They don’t really care if find out if there is anything wrong with you. Just in and out. Next!
The Republicans will bend backwards to veto any tax hike. Even if it means curing cancer which affects us all.
I read an article on the internet back in the year of, 2000, that said that the health care insurance would like to see cigarettes never be banned. They claim that they would save money if we didn’t live so long in our geriatric age. The next day, they had to recant what came out of their mouth.