BIDEN AT VATICAN:
VP, pontiff call for global cooperation, empathy at Vatican
Addressing a conference in Vatican City, Vice President Joe Biden urged international cooperation in a major drive to cure cancer.
VATICAN CITY — A few months after Joe Biden’s eldest son died of an aggressive form of brain cancer, the vice president traveled to Philadelphia to see off Pope Francis after the pontiff ’s first U.S. visit.
Before the pope took off, he privately met, and mourned, with Biden and his extended family.
“I wish every grieving parent, brother or sister, mother or father would have had the benefit of his words, his prayers, his presence,” Biden recalled Friday
Within weeks, Biden would announce the end of his presidential ambitions and devote himself to the “moonshot” effort he said was needed to cure the disease that claimed his son.
The anti-cancer initiative has become a driving focus for the vice president in his final year in office, and it brought him here Friday to a conference at the seat of the Catholic Church calling for a decade’s worth of progress fighting cancer in half as long.
“More than at any point in human history, we have a genuine opportunity to help more people all across the world than ever before,” Biden said. “And that’s our obligation.”
Francis spoke after Biden, declaring that “the globalization of indifference must be countered by the globalization of empathy.”
His comments echoed Biden’s, as Francis called for increased funding and legislation to promote research for cures for rare diseases.
While Biden has traveled to leading research centers throughout the U.S. this year, he said the anti-cancer effort has been a surprising topic of conversation abroad as well.
“The number of world leaders that have contacted me who want to collaborate and work together — they sense exactly what we sense: the enormous possibilities,” he said.
Biden used his address at the Vatican to outline the principles for international cooperation, beginning with addressing preventable forms of cancer, particularly in developing nations.
The vice president also called for more government-funded cancer research to back up the administration’s proposed $1 billion increase.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have expressed support for that expanded federal investment in cancer research. Last year, Congress backed a budget deal to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health.
Senior lawmakers from both parties have also been cooperating on major legislation to speed approval of drugs and medical devices and boost funding for medical research.
The House overwhelmingly passed a version of the legislation last summer — the 21st Century Cures Act, which would commit $8.75 billion to the initiative. And the Senate health committee has been working on a package of its own bills.
The congressional effort complements Biden’s initia- tive, according to senior administration officials as well as House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, RMich., one of the architects of the House bill.
“There is a good probability that we’ll be able to marry the two together,” he said.
Last month, Biden met with Upton as well as other senior lawmakers working on the medical research initiative, including Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, RTenn., and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
But funding for the effort remains a major hurdle, particularly among conservative Republicans who have committed to slash federal spending.
“Scientific and cancer research should be a national priority,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga. “Sadly, we have an administration which refuses to prioritize. It simply wants more and more tax dollars and borrowed money to be spent, without regard for the fiscal consequences.”
The White House has asked for more than $750 million in new funding to support medical research next year, though it is unclear how that would be paid for.
Also controversial on the Hill is the president’s request that the new funding be made mandatory, which would exempt it from the appropriations process that Congress is supposed to use every year to fund the federal government.
Administration officials have argued that Congress’ budgeting has been so dysfunctional in recent years that it would threaten scientific research, which depends on more stable funding. But many Republicans reject this out of hand.
“I can’t believe anyone at the White House thinks it’s realistic,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who chairs the Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees health spending.