WASHINGTON — First lady Jill Biden will travel to Florida on Thursday for a pair of events in Tampa and Miami on Friday as the Biden administration ramps up its “Cancer Moonshot” program.
The first lady’s office announced Monday that she will visit the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Miami in Opa-locka as part of her visit to the state. Exact details for the event will be announced in the coming days.
Her Florida visit comes after the Biden administration relaunched the Cancer Moonshot. The program aims to reduce the death rate from cancer by 50% over 25 years.
President Joe Biden oversaw the program as vice president when it was launched during the final year of the Obama administration with $1.8 billion in funding over a seven-year period, which will end next year.
The initiative was de-prioritized during former President Donald Trump’s administration, but Biden officially reignited it this month with an event at the White House and is expected to push for additional funding from Congress.
“Despite the progress of lives extended and lives saved, cancer is still the No. 2 cause of death in America, second only to heart disease,” the president said at the Feb. 2 relaunch event. “In the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s taken more than — the pandemic has taken more than 800,000 American lives. But that same period of time, cancer has claimed 1.2 million American lives year in and year out.”
