Monday’s post noted that the war on cancer is going slowly, at best. Little did I know that by the end of the day, President Obama would respond during a speech to the National Academy of Sciences by announcing a doubling of the budget for cancer research !!
Ok, ok, so the reality is that his speech was planned long before the blog post went up. But, it was still great to read the following excerpt from a White House post on the speech, and to read the following excerpt from his speech to the National Academy of Sciences:
Excerpt from Post: ” Given the nature of the challenges the country faces in global economic competitiveness, energy, and health, the President will call for the U.S. to surpass its record investment in research and development, set in 1964 at the height of the space race, exceeding three percent of GDP. This goal would be met with both public and private investment.”
Excerpt from Speech to the National Academy: “And that’s why my administration is committed to increasing funding for the National Institutes of Health, including $6 billion to support cancer research — part of a sustained, multi-year plan to double cancer research in our country.”
That’s great. In my opinion, it’s still not enough money for cancer and other diseases when one considers the just under 600,000 US lives lost to cancer each year, and the hundreds of thousands of lives lost annually to other dread diseases. It is, however, great to see science becoming a national priority after so many years of neglect, if not antipathy.
The speech is well worth reading in full.