Cancer research has received the much needed boost from President Obama and Vice President Biden. During his state of the union speech on January 12, 2016 President Obama announced their commitment to cancer research.

Since losing his son to brain cancer last year, Vice President Biden has been working closely with American Association of Cancer Research
and top cancer researchers and physician-scientists to learn about the
current state of cancer research and treatment and potential
opportunities to advance the pace of progress. Thanks to his lobbying it
helped secure a $2-billion increase for National Institute of Health in this year’s spending legislation. National Cancer Institute is part of NIH.

Last October Vice President Biden said the country needs “a moonshot”
to cure cancer and vowed to spend his next 15 months in office to
advance this cause. During his address President Obama nominated Vice
President Biden in charge of carrying out the “moonshot” to find a cure
and announced “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”.

Let us hope for and look forward to good things to come out of this commitment in the near future.

Read the full coverage in USA Today, NBC News, and The Hill. Read about Vice President Biden’s plans and next steps in his blog post in Medium.

We have all been there – not finding the right thing to say or not knowing how to help a friend or relative who is diagnosed with cancer.

Elena Miller was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 when she was doing psychiatry residency in UCLA. She writes about her experience in her blog http://zenpsychiatry.com/. She has put together a quick start guide to help with communication. It addresses the needs of both the patients and their friends and family members.

She points out that when a person first gets a cancer diagnosis, they’re often so overwhelmed they have no idea how to ask for help or what to ask for — but they sure need it. If you have a friend or family member with cancer you want to help, don’t make the mistake of making a vague, questionably-sincere offer.

You can find her quick start guide in CIF’s website at this link. Here are some of the excerpts from her guide.

Send a quick email, text, or message saying you’re thinking of them. Add “No need to respond” to the end of your message—they’ll appreciate hearing from you without feeling the need to do anything in return.

Do not make their cancer about you! Do not give advice but listen. Avoid speaking in cliches like “everything happens for a reason”, “every cloud has a silver lining”.

Cancer isn’t contagious—give your friend a hug to let them know you’re on their side.