State of the Union: Obama announces national effort to find a cure for cancer

A previous, fictional, president had a similar desire to find a cure for the disease

Mr Obama said he was putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the effort to find a cure for cancer (AP)

If Americans listening to Barack Obama’s speech thought they had heard another US president vow to cure cancer, they were correct.

In 2002, episode 12, season three of the West Wing devoted an entire show to fictional president Jeb Bartlet’ determination to cure cancer. The show features him telling his staff that had been discussing the issue at a dinner party attended by experts, and that they believed it was possible, given enough money.

Inspired by the idealism of President John G Kennedy and his vow to send a man to the moon, President Bartlet wanted to include his vow to cure cancer in his State of the Union address. As it is, his senior officials talk him out of it, and he reluctantly drops it.

The fictional president Jed Bartlet also wanted to cure cancer

In his final address to Congress on Tuesday night, Mr Obama adopted a similar idealism. He said that the US continued to be driven by innovation and research.

He said his government had worked to keep the internet open and make it available to “more students and low-income Americans”. “That spirit of discovery is in our DNA,” he said.

He said that Vice President Joe Biden, whose son, Beau, last year died of cancer, had said that with a “new moonshot”, America could cure cancer. He said the Vice President had worked with Congress to ensure scientists at the National Institutes of Health had the strongest resources they have had in over a decade.

“Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control,” said the president.”

“For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.”