(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) President Joe Biden has promised a taxpayer-funded attempt to cure cancer, but his personal cancer charity has spent very little on actual research, according to tax filings.
Biden, who speaks frequently of his son Beau who died of brain cancer, touted project “Cancer Moonshot” during a speech at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, The Daily Wire reported.
“When I was elected president, I was determined to supercharge ‘Cancer Moonshot’ as a central effort in the Biden-Harris administration,” he said. “To create a cancer research and care system that most people think we already have, but don’t realize until they already have cancer that we don’t.”
In 2017, Biden and his wife founded The Biden Cancer Initiative. The charity’s stated goal is to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes.”
The board of directors featured prominent medical and pharmaceutical professionals, along with ESPN reporter Erin Andrews and member of the Black Eyed Peas Jimy “Taboo” Gomez, who survived his battle with cancer.
The charity collected nearly $5 million in the first two years, and spent more than $3 million on staff salaries. The initiative’s president, Gregory Simon, earned $224,539 the first year, and got a raise to $429,850 the following year.
Simon, a former Pfizer executive, had previously worked with Obama’s White House cancer-fighting panel, known as the “Cancer Moonshot Task Force.”
Biden’s charity also spent a hefty amount on conferences and travel — $56,738 and $59,356 respectively. Both of these figures swelled the next year, with the group sending $742,953 on conferences and $97,149 on travel.
At the time, Simon defended the lack of grants with the claim that the charity’s goal was to help ensure treatment for poor people and minorities.
After two years in operation, the charity halted as Biden prepared to enter the 2020 presidential race.
“We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission,” Simon told the Associated Press in July 2019.
