Biden’s Boston Trip: Cutting Cancer Deaths in Half and Logan Airport’s Infrastructure Plan

US President Joe Biden is heading to Boston, Massachusettes to unveil his goal to cut cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. In an effort to connect his new plan to the 60th anniversary of former President John F. Kennedy’s space travel speech, he urged Americans to come together for a new “national purpose” in defeating cancer.

President Joe Biden made his way from the White House to Boston to deliver a speech at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Biden’s plan, first devised in February, is to cut U.S. cancer fatalities by 50% over the next 25 years while also creating a “more supportive experience for patients and families.”

"Cancer does not discriminate between red and blue. It doesn't care if you're Republican or Democrat. Beating cancer is something we can do together," said Biden, who lost his own son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015.

"When he set that goal, he established a national purpose that could rally the American people in a common cause and he succeeded," Biden said of Kennedy, likening his plan to cut cancer deaths to Kennedy’s 1962 “Moonshot” speech.

"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. And I believe we can usher in the same unwillingness to postpone -- the same national purpose that will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to end cancer as we know it and even cure cancers once and for all,” the president said on Monday.

Blood testing to screen for cancers in people who are, or appear to be, otherwise healthy are already being researched. The blood tests can detect tumors in the pancreas, ovaries, and other areas of the body that do not have a recommended screening method. But as of April, those blood tests are being marketed without endorsements from medical groups or recommendations from health authorities. The test is also $949, and the question of whether or not it will save lives is still a debate for some researchers.

Biden has called on the private sector to make drugs more affordable and to make data more available. He also announced funding for the biotechnology industry, including blood tests.

In his speech, the president also announced that Dr. Renee Wegrzyn would be the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Wegryzn will be responsible for the organization's research portfolio and associate budget, the White House said in a released statement. ARPA-H will focus on health research and “innovation” and its budget will be used to support cancer prevention, detection, and treatment programs.

“How do we learn what therapies are effective in which subtypes of disease? That to me is oceanic,” said Donald A. Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. “The possibilities are enormous. The challenges are enormous.”

“We can get to that 50% goal by slowing the disease sufficiently across the various cancers without curing anybody,” Berry added. “If I were to bet on whether we will achieve this 50% reduction, I would bet yes.”

With the midterm elections just two months away, Biden used Monday’s visit to Boston to tote a bipartisan infrastructure law at Boston Logan International Airport’s Terminal E. The law’s new spending will create 5,000 more jobs while improving capacity and access issues at the airport. The president added that the new infrastructure would put the U.S. back into the race against “our competitors” such as China, who he claimed “we risk losing our edge as a nation to.”

"We risk losing our edge as a nation to China, and the rest of the world is catching up. That stops now, with investments like we're celebrating here today," the president said on Monday.

"Folks, America invented modern aviation. But we've allowed our airports to lag behind our competitors. Today, not a single solitary American airport, not one, ranked in the top 25 in the world. The United States of America. Not one airport ranks in the top 25 in the world. What in the hell's the matter with us? It means commerce, it means income, it means security," Biden added.

The infrastructure bill, which includes $50 million to “modernize” Boston Logan’s Terminal E and and another $12 million to improve the airport’s roadways, aims to make American airports the “best in the world,” the president added.