Former Vice President Joe Biden made a bold promise this week to "cure cancer" if he is elected president in 2020.
The issue hits particularly close to home for Biden, whose son, Beau, died in 2015 at the age of 46, after suffering from brain cancer.
At a campaign event in Ottumwa, Iowa, on Tuesday, Biden expressed the difficulty one faces with a loss of a family member: "A lot of you understand what loss is and when loss occurs, you know that people come up to you and tell you 'I understand' if you lose a husband, a wife, a son, a daughter, a family member. They say, 'I know how you feel' when in reality they have no idea how I feel."
"That's why I've worked so hard in my career, that I promise you, if I'm elected president you're going to see the single most important thing that changes America, we're going to cure cancer," Biden declared.
While working in the Obama administration, Biden was responsible for the "Cancer Moonshot" initiative, which "accelerates cancer research aims to make more therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage," according to the organization's website.
