President Biden in August. He began his cancer initiative in 2016, when he was vice president, after the death of his son Beau from an aggressive brain cancer.
Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Biden Will Take Cancer ‘Moonshot’ Global at Summit in Delaware

The president will join the leaders of Australia, India and Japan to announce a new initiative for reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific, a region with especially high rates of the disease.

by · NY Times

President Biden, who is winding down his term and his life on the world stage, is taking one of his most prized personal initiatives — the cancer “moonshot” program — global.

When Mr. Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan meet in Wilmington, Del., on Saturday for the president’s final so-called Quad Summit, they will unveil a new collaboration aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific, White House officials said. Some countries in the region, particularly poor and remote island nations, have especially high rates of the disease.

The Quad Cancer Moonshot Initiative will focus on expanding cervical cancer screening; increasing vaccinations against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a common sexually transmitted infection that is the primary cause of cervical cancer; and treating patients. In June, Jill Biden, the first lady, announced a five-year, $1.58 billion commitment to Gavi, an international organization that works to expand access to vaccines and that will support the effort, officials said.

Cervical cancer, which is preventable and curable if it is detected and treated early, is the fourth most common cause of cancer among women worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. In 2020, the W.H.O. adopted a global strategy for the elimination of the disease. Its goals include having 90 percent of girls vaccinated against HPV by age 15.

Australia has set a goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2035, which could make it the first country to eliminate the disease. Australia is also taking the lead in reducing cervical cancer in the region. The Quad cancer initiative, which is being spearheaded by Mr. Biden’s ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, will build on that work.

The White House officials, speaking anonymously to preview the announcement, said U.S. Navy hospital ships, which already work in the region, would begin conducting cervical cancer screenings and delivering vaccines to remote island nations. India, one of the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturers, will make and distribute vaccines. Japan will provide technological infrastructure.

Saturday’s meeting will be the first time in Mr. Biden’s presidency that he has hosted foreign leaders at his Wilmington home — “a reflection of his deep personal relationships” with the other Quad leaders, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said last week. The meeting will also focus on natural disaster response, maritime security, climate and clean energy, and cybersecurity, among other issues.

This is not the first time Mr. Biden has brought the Quad leaders together to work on vaccination. In 2021, just five months into his presidency and under intense pressure to address a global shortage of coronavirus vaccines, Mr. Biden used a virtual gathering of the group to announce a new partnership with Japan, India and Australia for expanding global vaccine manufacturing capacity. The new initiative flows out of that partnership, officials said.

Mr. Biden’s cancer moonshot, whose stated aim is to “end cancer as we know it,” is close to his heart. He inaugurated it in 2016, when he was vice president, after the death of his son Beau from glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. In 2022, the president and first lady announced a plan to “reignite” the moonshot, and set an ambitious goal of reducing the death rate from cancer by 50 percent over the next 25 years.

Mr. Biden spoke about that plan at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston in September 2022, on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s “moonshot” speech about the nation’s space program. Ms. Kennedy introduced Mr. Biden there.

In an interview, Ms. Kennedy said that when she returned to Australia, she began digging into the country’s work on cervical cancer and learned that the United States and Australia were already cooperating on reducing the disease. After visiting remote island nations in the Indo-Pacific and attending conferences, including one on cancer in Indigenous people, she said, she became convinced that the existing collaboration could be expanded.

“President Biden has made clear that modernizing our alliances and understanding the power of them comes from the ground up,” she said.

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