Joe Biden vows to continue his hunt for a cancer cure — even under a President Trump

(Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

published 19 September 2016

Vice President Joe Biden will not be continuing his "cancer moonshot" initiative from within a Hillary Clinton administration if she wins the White House, STAT reports. Despite Clinton recently vowing to "carry out the mission the vice president has set," Biden clarified he would do so from "the outside."

"I'm not going to stay on in the administration. What Hillary talked about is, as I understood it, me being able to have the same authority over elements of her administration from the outside that I have now from the inside, to be able to coordinate those efforts," Biden said.

Biden's cancer moonshot initiative intends to advance cancer research by 10 years over the course of the next five. "I'm going to stay involved in this effort as long as I'm alive," Biden said. "So I'm going to stay engaged. Exactly how, I don't know yet." Biden is personally motivated, too; his son died of brain cancer in the spring of 2015. But even if Clinton doesn't win the White House, Biden said he hopes Republicans would support the research.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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