The fight against cancer

Associated Press

Cancer affects everyone's lives. Even if you don't have it personally, almost everyone knows someone who had it. And many have lost loved ones to it. Cancer doesn't pick and choose, it just attacks. From the wealthiest to the poorest, it exists everywhere. Just in the past two weeks we lost three famous faces to it: David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Rene Angelil. And they are just a couple of the estimated 9 million people who died from it within the past year. Yes, more than the size of Austria. Sadly it is that staggering. It is now finally time to find a cure for it.

President Obama, in his last State of the Union speech, has promised to make curing cancer a key priority for his last year in office. He said that the government is launching a new initiative, and is committed to make America the country that cures cancer. He likened the situation to space exploration and getting a man to the moon, describing the project as "moonshot". President Kennedy announced his moon initiative in 1961, and within 8 years, Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon. The target now is the 2020's, and we are all behind this plan. We really do hope that this will work.

Vice President Joe Biden will head this new project, for whom it is very personal after the loss of his eldest son, Beau, in May. Biden has outlined that his key concern is to dramatically increase research spending over the years and incentivizing closer collaboration between the many pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and research facilities. He believes that if everyone works together, and doesn't try to solve the puzzle privately for their own benefit, that a cure could be found more quicker. And he is right, there are many promising new therapies and techniques, but more time is needed for research and development.

Obama isn't the only President who made curing cancer a key priority. The great Richard Nixon set out this project too during his first term in office. America, and the world, made huge progress in the 70's regarding the matter, but the cure is still not here. But millions of lives were extended by years due to new, cutting edge treatments. Nixon's War on Cancer and National Cancer Act raised more than 100 million dollars, which in 1971 was a huge sum, and created many influential research institutions such as the National Cancer Institute. The Nixon initiative also greatly enhanced genome research, which has become our best chance of finding a cure

On the other hand, this is the latest step, in what many see as "Obama off the rails". Although no one argues with curing cancer. We are all for it 100%, but it is interesting to see how he has only embarked on these key issues once he won't be judged by voters in an election. He could have announced this initiative in 2010. But no. Although surely Beau Biden's death last year had a great impact on the President. Obama has also been previously mocked for not putting enough importance on cancer research in Obamacare. The critic's of his health care plan have especially raised concerns for red-taping research and for not dealing with individual cases of cancer, but only vaguely grouping cancers in a few big groups, and thus making it harder to be covered for treatment.

Some of the other bold moves by Obama lately include the Paris Climate action and detente with Cuba. We support both plans fully, but it really shows that most politicians, including Obama, only care about getting re-elected, and not what really matters. 

Nevertheless we applaud the President for his initiative and hope that it will work! Let's cure cancer together!

This is an original material of Finchley 1959.