At his State of the Union speech in January, President Obama aimed high, launching what he called a "cancer moonshot" to "put ourselves on a path to achieve in just five years research and treatment gains that otherwise might take a decade or more." Obama put Vice President Joe Biden "in charge of mission control" for the program, and he's on the job, going to the source.
In an emotional speech, Vice President Joe Biden urged the 30,000 oncologists attending the American Society of Clinical Oncology's [ASCO] annual conference to work together in the search for a cure for cancer. […]
“No one can find the answer on his or her own,” Biden said. “I need your help—we can do much better than we do.”
Tapped earlier this year by President Barack Obama to lead the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, Biden lamented the fragmentation of data and urged oncologists to unite and share research concerning clinical trials and electronic health records to better understand cancers and effective treatment options.
That includes expanding programs like ASCO's CancerLinQ initiative. RIght now, ASCO is following the data of patients in 58 oncology practices, and Biden wants it to be expanded to all of them. He also called for an overhaul of the system for enrolling patients in clinical trials to make them more available to more patients in more cancer centers—right now only about 3 percent of patients are in clinical trials.
More cooperation among researchers and providers, breaking down the "silos" among them, is a key part of the administration's approach to the "moonshot," and it has to be. A Republican Congress won't even come up with new funding to combat Zika, an imminent threat to pregnant women and babies. They sure aren't going to step up with more funding for cancer.