Cancer is personal to the President, the Vice President, and the First Lady, as it is to virtually every American family. The Biden Cancer Moonshot has developed progress for the American people. The Biden-Harris Administration is mobilizing the federal government, private companies, healthcare providers, research institutions, and patient and advocacy groups to accelerate progress on prevention, early detection, innovation, and support for patients and their families.
The President and First Lady delivered actions to bring cancer screenings to more communities, rebounding to pre-pandemic screening levels after American missed nearly 10 million cancer screenings during the pandemic. This included a more than $1 billion commitment from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, significant private sector action, and steps from the Department of Veterans Affairs to reach at least 1 million veterans with cancer screenings.
With the President and First Lady’s leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration delivered the first-ever reimbursable navigation services for families facing cancer. This mean that seniors with a cancer diagnoses will be able to have a patient navigator — someone who can help them get better informed, make treatment decisions, and access resources throughout their cancer journey.
Additionally, by securing commitments from leading insurance companies to reimburse for navigation services, more than 150 million Americans using private insurance will have paid access to these services which improve outcomes and equity.
President Biden and Vice President Harris also secured a bipartisan investment of $4 billion to pioneer breakthroughs in preventing, detecting, and treating cancer and other life-threatening diseases, and established a new research agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). ARPA-H has already committed more than $500 million in cutting-edge programs aimed at cancer as we know it.
The Biden-Harris Administration also prioritized life-saving innovation for our nation’s military service and veterans facing cancer through new VA and DOD investments and research programs, took steps through the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health to ensure clinical trials reach more communities through the Cancer Moonshot Scholars program.
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Environmental Protection Agency dedicated more than $1 billion for cleanup projects at 50 toxic Superfund sites across the country and protected more than 100 million Americans from PFAS – the “forever chemicals” known to cause cancer and other health issues – by seeing the first ever drinking water standard for PFAS and dedicating more than $20 billion to improve Americans’ drinking water.