Joe Biden Can’t Cure Cancer
Once again, Joe Biden has pledged to cure cancer. At the same time, his campaign is being bankrolled by the very industries that profit from keeping treatment prohibitively expensive.
Democratic presidential candidate former vice president Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit, Michigan on March 9, 2020. Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty
As the results rolled in on the night of Super Tuesday, a buoyant Joe Biden addressed his supporters in Los Angeles. Among the many colorful remarks of that speech, the Democratic nominee reiterated his promise to cure cancer — alongside Alzheimer’s and diabetes.
This isn’t the first time Biden has made such a promise. Since his son Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2013, Joe Biden has committed himself to the fight against cancer. Though this commitment is laudable and very sympathetic, his methods are ultimately unrealistic. As a cancer researcher who has also lost a close family member to cancer, I feel compelled to stress the errors in his approach to the problem.
Promising the Moon
Following Beau Biden’s death in 2015, the Biden family reached out to billionaire Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong and Joe Biden put him in charge of the Cancer Moonshot expert panel to cure cancer in January 2016.
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