In a speech on Monday, America’s soon-to-be ex-VP announced that he will devote his post-White House days to changing the way America researches cancer, as well as giving care to those with the disease. His organisation may be called the Joe Biden Cancer Initiative.
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“There’s an urgent need to continue this momentum, that’s why I came to you, I really do mean this. This is too deadly important,” he told the San Francisco crowd.
Biden’s eldest son and former attorney general of Delaware, Beau, died from brain cancer in 2015. While in office, the Vice President headed Obama’s national effort called Cancer Moonshot, which aimed to do 10 years of cancer research in five.
The Associated Press reported that Biden’s new initiative will aim to improve “data standards to help researchers, work with community care organisations to improve access to care and push pharmaceutical companies, insurance providers and biotech companies to ensure patients can afford treatments”.
Biden promised to spend “the rest of [his] life” fighting “to change the system”, presumably by spearheading the Joe Biden Cancer Initiative.