Former President Barack Obama extended his well wishes to former President Joe Biden on Sunday evening.
Biden’s office announced earlier in the day that the 46th president had received a serious prostate cancer diagnosis on Friday. Biden was Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017.
“Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family,” Obama said in a post on X. “Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.”
During his last year in office, in his final State of the Union address in January 2016, Obama launched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Before the speech, Biden had been working on several initiatives with Congress to increase resources for the National Institutes of Health to try to end cancer. During the 2016 speech, Obama tasked then-Vice President Biden with an initiative to find a cure for cancer.
“Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer,” Obama said at the time. “Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.”
Biden kicked off his “Moonshot” initiative with a press conference at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center, one of the world’s leading cancer research facilities. Biden applauded the program’s efforts and highlighted the progress that had already been made, including the breakthroughs and work at the Abramson Cancer Center.
“You’re on the cusp of some breakthroughs,” Biden said then. “In my terms — not your medical terms — we are at an inflection point in the fight against cancer.”
By October 2016, Biden was leading the Cancer Moonshot Task Force and increasing the funding for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health.
In 2022, while president, Biden brought back the “Cancer Moonshot” to continue working to cure cancer. The initiative focused on cutting “the cancer death rate by at least half by 2047, preventing more than four million cancer deaths, and to improve the experience of people living with and surviving cancer.” It included forming the nation’s first-ever Cancer Cabinet.
Biden made pursuing a cure for cancer an important part of his work, particularly after his son, Beau Biden, died from brain cancer in January 2015.
