Vice President Makes First Stop in Cleveland Following National Cancer Moonshot Summit

Vice President Joe Biden came to Cleveland June 30 in his first stop following the national Cancer Moonshot Summit in Washington, DC. He met with leaders from the National Cancer Institute-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, a successful collaborative effort of the city’s medical resources of which University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center is a founding member.

Biden is pulling together cancer researchers, clinical caregivers, the government, the pharmaceutical industry, information technology, cancer survivors and other advocates to build a roadmap to accelerate cancer cures. The Vice President, who lost his son to brain cancer last year, was tasked with the Cancer Moonshot initiative by President Obama in his January State of the Union address. He declared that we owe it to future generations to seize this challenge. Vice-President Joe Biden and Stan Gerson, MD

"Yesterday was a milestone in the fight against cancer,” said Stan Gerson, MD, Director of UH Seidman Cancer Center, who introduced Biden at his Cleveland visit and attended the Summit in Washington, DC. “I was honored to participate in this amazing day. There was passion, urgency and alignment in the rooms and breakout sessions. It was truly a remarkable experience. For the first time, I had the sense that many barriers will fall, and that priorities will be reestablished.”

Cleveland hosted one of more than 270 concurrent local summits across the country, and cheers erupted at the ideastream summit when Biden mentioned he was headed to Cleveland. Biden’s visit to Cleveland focused on an effort by the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center to reduce smoking rates and increase HPV vaccination rates.

"Vice President Biden’s leadership has hit a hot spot that the country just did not know how much it needed,” Dr. Gerson said. “His advocacy, passion and mission has been absolutely remarkable to observe. Only Joe Biden could have brought together so many for the Moonshot Summit and to seek a significant change in direction and business as usual. Thinking outside the box is the starting point.”