How Close Are We to a Cure for Cancer?

When will we have a cure for cancer? Perhaps in five years if everything goes to plan.

According to News 4, Congress approved $195 million to go toward cancer research last year, and on Feb. 9, President Obama will ask for $755 million more, making the total in cancer research (if approved by Congress), at $1 billion.

With a $1 billion fund for cancer research, Vice President Joe Biden will head a cancer moonshot task force, a task force that intends to bring different federal entities together – like the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense, FDA, and Energy Department – to work toward a cure for cancer.

This will involve, “speeding the pace of progress,” as Biden noted in an article on Medium. He added, “We’ll clear out the bureaucratic hurdles — and, quite frankly, let science happen.”

The federal agencies in the moonshot cancer task force will work toward sharing data to help further research in different departments, break down barriers that limits research, and make cancer treatments affordable to the masses.

Biden’s best news? That they plan to cure cancer very soon: “We’re trying to get to a quantum leap on the path to a cure. That’s the goal of this moonshot. To make a decade worth of advances in five years — and, eventually, end cancer as we know it.”

Only five years to a cancer cure? Yes, please.