The Fake Politics of "Curing Cancer"

Joe Biden is the latest in 50 Years of Tough-Talking Presidents With Unrealistic Promises

A lot of people were surprised when President Biden, at a White House event yesterday to promote insurers expanding access to mental health coverage, said,  “One of the things I'm always asked is, you know, why Americans have sort of lost faith for a while in being able to do big things. ‘If you could do anything at all, Joe, what would you do?’

“I said, ‘I'd cure cancer.’ They looked at me like, ‘Why cancer?’ Because no one thinks we can, that's why. And we can. We ended cancer as we know it.” '(The official White House transcript later cleaned up the president’s words, reporting he said: “We can end cancer as we know it.”)

For those of us who follow the intersection of politics and public health, Biden’s words about ‘I’d cure cancer” are not new, unique or realistic.

In his State of the Union address in 2021, Biden pledged to slash the cancer death rate by ha…