Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Alex | Email Max JOE BIDEN has been impatiently waiting for this day for over a year. In a speech at the Pfizer Kalamazoo Manufacturing Site in Michigan last February, the new president made clear that cancer was top of mind on his health agenda. “I want you to know that once we beat Covid, we’re going to do everything we can to end cancer as we know it,” he said at the top of his remarks. But Biden’s announcement of a new cancer “moonshot” kept getting delayed as new coronavirus variants arrived, according to a source familiar with the plans. As 2022 began, the administration finally decided to move forward with the relaunch of the cancer "moonshot,” the administration’s multi-pronged initiative to fund and coordinate promising cancer treatment research that Biden created as vice president in the final year of BARACK OBAMA’s administration. The packed event today at the White House was also the latest implicit admission that the country is unlikely to “beat” Covid any time soon, as the administration once hoped, and instead must multi-task. “[T]he new administration was primed” to take aggressive action on cancer, Dr. DAVID AGUS , a former board member of the Biden Cancer Initiative (BCI) and the founding CEO of USC’s Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, told us. But “the problem is this pesky virus got in the way.” A White House official pushed back on the idea that the cancer moonshot announcement would have happened earlier if not for Covid. “We’ve been working toward finding an exact date for an event but nothing has been ‘pushed back’ since there was never a specific date we were eyeing,” he said “The work on cancer research has been active since day 1.” Agus, nevertheless, described it as an acknowledgement that Covid is here to stay and can no longer delay progress on other priorities. “I think today was a mark in the sand that instead of just dealing with the current, which is the virus and the pandemic, we also have to think forward, and that is advancing the war on cancer,” he said. “Cancer didn't stop when the pandemic happened. And the problem is we stopped screening, we stopped much of treatment, we stopped prevention studies. And all of that needs to get back.” Dr. ERIC LANDER, the head of the the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in an interview that the pandemic had “real interesting effects [on medical research and care], positive and negative,” citing the development of messenger RNA vaccines, new ways to enroll in clinical trials and patients’ ability to consult with doctors remotely as positive developments. “On the other hand, here's a big negative that the president talked about loud and clear: Nine million cancer screenings that should have happened.” Administration officials have also been signaling that defeating Covid outright is not possible in the near term. “I think we’re moving towards this ability to, quote, ‘live with the virus’ as it were,” ANTHONY FAUCI said in an interview with the New York Times on Monday. The Bidens’ personal connection to the cancer fight is well documented, and has become one of the biggest priorities of the family since the president’s son BEAU BIDEN died of brain cancer in 2015. Obama put Biden in charge of a so-called “moonshot” initiative, and the vice president set up the Biden Cancer Initiative after he left office to continue the work. Healthcare biotech investor JULIE PAPANEK GRANT , one of the directors of the BCI, told West Wing Playbook that although she knew the Bidens were personally invested in the issue, she was impressed by their level of involvement in the organization. She noted that during the period between Biden’s vice presidency and his election in 2020, both he and first lady JILL BIDEN attended every BCI board meeting, and had input in the group’s agenda, getting into granular detail about cancer treatments and ways to improve patient experiences. Despite lingering fears about Covid-19, Wednesday’s White House announcement was a big ticket event. One source with knowledge of how the event came together told West Wing Playbook that many top Democratic officials have been eager to participate, understanding that it could be a politically popular initiative, and is personally important to the Bidens. “It was a packed house. It felt a bit like a reunion for people who haven't seen each other because of the pandemic, and are very committed to advancing cancer research,” said Grant, who attended the event, and noted the number of cancer patient advocates and top health experts in attendance. “I love the event today, I just don't like the title,” said Agus, explaining that the term “moonshot” doesn’t mean much to people battling cancer now. “The devil will be in the details, but this is a start to hopefully something significant that can affect the lives of many people.” TEXT US — Did we miss something about Biden’s cancer initiative? Send us an email or text and we will try to include your thoughts in the next day’s edition. Can be anonymous, on background, etc. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098 or Max at 7143455427. WHAT YOU TEXTED: Yesterday’s newsletter about Covid coordinator JEFF ZIENTS’ frontrunner status to succeed RON KLAIN as chief of staff prompted a bunch of responses. Here are a few. They were all granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to us. One administration official asked us: “Does anyone else find it ironic that on the same week Sec. [Xavier] Becerra is trashed by WaPo because the handling of covid is such a mess - when he has no authority over it - this can be so glowing about the guy who is actually in charge? Has covid gone well or hasn’t it? Any fair assessment of it should be reflected in the assessment of the actual coach.” Another administration official wrote: “He hasn’t done a ton of cable tv or whatever but it is interesting that, unlike so many senior and powerful wh officials… jeff faces the press at least once a week at the covid briefings. and has at least once a week *every week for the entire administration so far.*” The progressive Revolving Door Project twitter account: “If Zients is promoted, the word ‘competence’ will have lost all meaning. Zients' many job failures have harmed us all.” You can read the group’s thread here. One Republican senate aide wrote: “Susan rice is my guess for next cos [chief of staff]. Crazy?” Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you DANIELLE CARNIVAL, who is helping lead the “Cancer Moonshot”? (Email/text us! Please?)
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