Cancer moonshot. 1.

Recently, President Obama has increased funding to boost funding to fight cancer. Recent advances in the race to cure cancer include a way to harness the body’s immune system to combat the cancerous cells and reading the genetic material of cancer cells to precisely target the affected cells. However, anyone living long enough would feel like the president’s announcement is all too familiar. This is because in 1971 Ronald Reagan declared war on the disease and sparked a scientific campaign to cure it with 100 million dollars of funding. Although the campaign started in 1971, and is clearly ongoing, it was established by ‘socialite and philanthropist’, Mary Lasker, who married advertising executive Albert Lasker. Together, they founded the Lasker Foundation to boost the American Cancer Society’s drive to fight the disease. Lasker needed an ally to add scientific credibility to her campaign which she believed would eventually succeed if she did; Sydney Farber treated children with leukaemia and he was frustrated with the lack of support cancer treatment had. Lasker led the public campaign and rallied the people of America, and eventually the world, and Farber had scientific expertise to ensure a realistic result came from a national campaign. Much of the progress made on the war on cancer is a direct result of Lasker and Farber’s campaign such as; the formulation of the National Cancer Institute, the passing of the National Cancer Act and possibly the main reason why Ronald Reagan announced his funding for research in cancer in the early 1970s.