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President Biden on Monday touted his vision for greatly reducing cancer deaths as a national cause that could inspire divided Americans to rally around a common goal.
Speaking from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s “moonshot” speech, Mr. Biden said the U.S. stands at an “inflection point” similar to the one the country faced under the Kennedy administration in 1962.
“President Kennedy set a goal to win the space race against Russia, to advance science and technology for all of humanity,” Mr. Biden said. “When he set that goal, he established a national purpose that could rally the American people to the common cause. And he succeeded.
“Now in our time, on the 60th anniversary of his clarion call, we face another inflection point, and together, we can choose to move forward with unity, hope and optimism,” he said.
Cancer research is personal to Mr. Biden. His son Beau died from an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2015.
Mr. Biden relaunched his cancer initiative, which he began as vice president in 2016, in February.
He’s called for an end to “cancer as we know it today” and a reduction of at least 50% in the age-adjusted death rate from cancer over the next 25 years.
