President Obama's Weekly Address 10/29/16: Achieving the Mission of the Cancer Moonshot

WASHINGTON, DC — In this week's address, Vice President Joe Biden discussed the progress of the White House Cancer Moonshot, an initiative with the goal to make a decade’s worth of advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, in five years. Recently, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force released a report that outlines what we need to do to achieve this goal, including: enhancing prevention efforts, expanding access to care, increasing collaboration and sharing data amongst cancer researchers, and building an international commitment to the fight against cancer. The report also highlighted the progress we’ve made since the launch of the Moonshot. Today, federal agencies are working together to share research – such as the National Institutes of Health using NASA’s research on radiation and its effects on the human body. In the past few months, more than 70 public and private sector commitments have been made to join the fight against cancer – such as IBM, which offered its supercomputer, Watson, to partner with the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to help patients determine specific therapies they need for their cancer treatment. The Vice President said the Moonshot is about all of us doing our part in the fight against cancer. To learn how you can volunteer to help, visit Cancer.Serve.Gov, and to learn about clinical trials nearby, visit Trials.Cancer.Gov.

Pallone Calls for Action On Gun Violence Prevention With New Legislation

Washington, DC — Today, Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (NJ-06), top Democrat of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health joined with the Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman (CA-33), to introduce new legislation, "The Gun Violence Prevention and Reduction Act of 2013." The bill will protect American children and their families from the epidemic of gun violence by banning access to certain weapons, strengthening the nation's mental health infrastructure, and improving the understanding of gun violence.

“Now is the time for Congress to act to take steps to keep our families and communities safer,” said Pallone. “While we can never prevent all crimes or gun violence, we can work together to find ways to limit losses of life with common sense solutions, and this bill does just that. Far too many times, we have seen the shocking images of unspeakable tragedies in communities across the country, which is why I will not give up this fight in Congress.”

The bill would authorize additional research on serious mental illness, improve access to mental health services for all, and reinforce existing government authorities to carry out public health research on gun violence. The legislation would also prohibit the sale of gun kits like those used in the Santa Monica shooting earlier this year, which allowed the shooter to exploit a loophole in state and federal gun laws to purchase a partially completed gun online.

The full text of the bill is available online here. A bill summary is available online here.