WHY NOT HAVE A REAL CANCER MOONSHOT ?
"One small fight to challenge the U.S. Congress, for the good of humankind."
CP
THE CANCER MOONSHOT?
The Cancer MOONSHOT is a great idea but what good are words without the necessary funding?
The actual cancer moonshot seems more like a pea shot, a $250-million annual increase after a decades of relatively flat funding is heartlessly pathetic when weighted against the death totals and devastation wrought by cancer.
The original NASA Moonshot in 1960s started under President Kennedy was a decade long financial and national commitment to put man on the moon. The NASA budget in the decade represented.approximately 2.6% of the entire U.S. budget, whereas cancer kills 1-in-4 of us yet gets less than 1/9th-of-1% of the federal budget. NASA's moonshot succeeded because we made the commitment to do it AND put the financing behind it to ensure we got the job done.
To paraphrase President Kennedy:
Why choose cancer research funding? And you may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why do we seek the best weapons technology? Why do we choose to explore outer space? Why should we take on the most lethal & enduring killer in human history?
We must choose to cure cancer. We must choose to cure cancer in the next decade, not because it will be easy, but because it will be very hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that goal will save lives and keep loved ones together, because the cancer challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win. We pledge our greatest resources for the good of humankind, in a spirit of great science & collaboration, our nation must have the courage and vision to lead in solving the great mysteries we must confront.
WHAT WILL HE DO?
President Donald Trump's has in the past proposed significant budget cuts to the National Cancer Institute in his annual budget proposals. Overall, his proposed cuts in science & medical research funding could cripple the United States leadership in scientific discovery, a primary area for economic and job growth, as well as saving lives.
In 2024, the National Cancer Institute received a $7.2--billion budget, which represents just 1/9th of one-percent of the overall US budget for the killer of nearly one-in-four of us.
Making things much worse, any dramatic cuts in the Environmental Protection Agency budgets and enforcement would leave all Americans much more exposed and at risk for cancer.
This year well over 611,000 Americans will die of cancer, more than ever before, and our President should commit to increased cancer research funding... but this will only happen if the public demands in a unified voice that the real War Against Cancer needs to start NOW.
PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP
Before he was elected, President Barack Obama promised to double federal cancer research funding within five years. Disappointingly, after two terms in office, the first annual increase occurred last December with the Cancer Moonshot $264-million, a minuscule 4% boost that hardly changes outcomes.
The lack of consistent political leadership on cancer research is baffling. Nearly every American family is impacted by the disease. President Obama lost his mother to cancer, while President Biden lost his son Beau to brain cancer. Clearly their hearts should have been in the right place, yet for some reason the issue never resonated enough for them to actually lead Congress.
A Cancer Moonshot without adequate funding is like a car without an engine & tires: a great concept going nowhere.
President Biden should have been the ideal leader to change thinking & help steer a REAL CANCER MOONSHOT, but he never led the way. But CancerPunk believes making Congress wake up to feel the enormous cancer problem is the only way to ensure proper resources are allocated.
The slow pace of cancer discovery is dictated by callous indifference in Congressional research funding. In our divided political atmosphere, no issue could be more unifying and worthy of bi-partisan action. Cancer kills equally without regard to wealth, age, ethnic background, religious affiliation or political party.
