In his 1971 State of the Union address, President Richard Nixon asked for “the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon” to be turned toward cancer. On December 23, 1971, he signed the National Cancer Act, which became known as “The War on Cancer.” The aim was “nothing short of the eradication of cancer.”
The effort brought real gains. It also created “unrealistic expectations that a cancer cure was just around the corner.” In 2022 President Joe Biden relaunched the Cancer Moonshot with a new goal: to “reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years.”
The comparison with the Moon landing stayed. The goal became smaller.