Cancer research is ‘deeply underfunded.’ Let’s do something about that. | Opinion

President Joe Biden is taking another shot at the moon.

This week, he announced a relaunch of his signature “Cancer Moonshot,” which debuted in 2016, when he was vice president. His goal: to cut cancer deaths in half over the next 25 years. It’s an important step, and a unique opportunity to make progress in fighting America’s second leading cause of death.

But it’s not the first time the government has rethought its approach to cancer. Fifty years ago, President Richard Nixon joined Democrats and Republicans in Congress to launch a health-care revolution with the National Cancer Act of 1971. A half-century later, we continue to build upon the transformation that followed — not just in how we treat cancer, but in how we think about it.

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Today, cancer research needs a new “moonshot.” Relative to the scope of the need, cancer research remains deeply underfunded. Without a renewed focus on cancer — particularly pediatric cancer, which afflicts the youngest and most vulnerable — and stronger and sustained investment from Congress and the White House, we could stall on the essential progress set in motion 50 years ago.

The blueprints for the success of the Cancer Moonshot were created in 1971. By orienting the government toward fighting cancer head-on, the National Cancer Act led to breakthroughs in research and care that continue to spur innovation today. And for the first time, it gave cancer patients and their families something many hadn’t had before: hope.

It’s been a long time coming. In the early 1970s, cancer was largely misunderstood, and research was underprioritized. The public didn’t talk about it — or when they did, they talked not about cancer patients, but about cancer victims.

And it was always seen as a death sentence.

Then in 1971, President Nixon boldly proposed devoting $100 million to fight cancer. The goal was not just a cure, but to develop a culture of research that would ensure generations to come would continue learning about how to both battle and manage the disease — and to build public support for that research.

The resulting National Cancer Act, signed that December, was a revolution in medicine. The bill led to advancements that revolutionized survival rates for some forms of pediatric cancer so that children’s chances of survival went from 10% to 80%. It strengthened the National Cancer Institute and created NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network. It founded 15 designated cancer centers nationally; today that number has ballooned to 71 and counting.

Along with giving hope, it provided a gift of time.

For all of us whose work has built on that foundation, we are privileged to give patients and their families the gift of time every day. At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, ranked as the top pediatric cancer program in the country, we can trace today’s innovations back to that 1971 bill. Through the work of physician-researchers like Stephan Grupp and his team, it has saved patients like Emily Whitehead, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in May 2010, when she was just 5 years old. In 2012, after two relapses, she became the first pediatric patient in the world to receive CAR T-cell therapy. Emily’s cancer remains in remission a decade later.

“It’s time for a renewed focus and investment in cancer research. It’s time for a moonshot.”

But with all the progress that has been made, all the improvements in survival, childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children. Yet, childhood cancer research accounts for just 4% of the National Institutes of Health’s annual budget.

It’s time for a renewed focus and investment in cancer research. It’s time for a moonshot.

Bipartisan cooperation in 1971 inspired millions of Americans then, and it created a framework for how lawmakers can — and must — work together now.

The 1971 National Cancer Act represented the best of America. The belief that we could do it again through the Cancer Moonshot a half-century later might be the most hopeful notion of all.

Madeline Bell is the president and CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.