First Lady Jill Biden landed in New Orleans on Friday on her first official visit to the city, praising the work of the staff at the Louisiana Cancer Research Center and emphasizing her husband’s administration’s commitment to preventing, detecting and “ending cancer, as we do.” know It.”
Her comments followed a 40-minute tour of the cancer center off Interstate 10 in the medical district, in a visit aimed to highlight the importance of investing in cancer research and to mark National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
First Lady Jill Biden visits the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans on Friday, March 10, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times Picayune
In a room full of researchers, health care providers, elected officials and civilian leaders, Biden recalled Sister Jan’s difficult battle with lymphoma and the stem cell therapy that saved her life.
“We were terrified of losing her, but even as I held her hand and my breath at every doctor’s visit, I found hope in the fact that researchers like you were working tirelessly to find the best, most effective treatments,” Biden said .
She noted that New Orleans and Louisiana have some of the highest rates of cancer in the United States.
“Cancer changes everyone it touches, and in a way it touches all of us,” Biden said. “This community knows that better than most. So many families here in New Orleans have lost loved ones to the disease and I know that is why you are here doing your work.”
First Lady Jill Biden thanks the medical staff at the conclusion of her visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans Friday, March 10, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times Picayune
Investing in cancer research is part of the federal government’s “cancer moonshot,” a bipartisan political initiative launched during the Obama administration and revived by President Joe Biden in 2022. Their goal is to reduce the cancer mortality rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
The Louisiana Cancer Research Center is a consortium of four local research and medical facilities:
- Center for Health Sciences at Tulane University
- LSU Center for Health Sciences
- Ochsen health
- Xavier University.
Its mission is to reduce cancer in Louisana and throughout the Gulf South.
The visit was Biden’s first to Louisiana as first lady, though she’s no stranger to New Orleans. Their daughter, Ashley Biden, went to Tulane University in the early 2000s, and Biden joked that as a Tulane mom, she would “sneak down” to check on her because “you never know what’s going on. It’s just too much fun down here.”
First Lady Jill Biden; U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, MD, U.S. Representative Troy Carter and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell listen to presentations during a visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans Friday, March 10, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times -Picayune | The New Orleans Attorney)
Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times Picayune
Biden was accompanied by US Senator Bill Cassidy and his wife Laura Cassidy, both doctors; US Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans; Mayor LaToya Cantrell; and Louisiana State Assemblyman Delisha Boyd of Algiers.
After that, she made an unannounced stop across town in Tulane for the New Orleans Book Festival. Accompanied by former mayor Mitch Landrieu, chief of infrastructure in the Biden administration, and festival co-chairs Walter Isaacson and Cheryl Landrieu, who is married to the former mayor, Biden sneaked in late for a historical fiction panel with the authors Geraldine Brooks and Sadeqa Johnson and Katy Simpson Smith.
“How exciting to come and listen to authors and what they write about and how they come up with their ideas,” Biden said in brief remarks. “It’s a dream come true for me because I hear so many political speeches, it’s so refreshing.”
Target viruses
Biden, a teacher and college professor, has long advocated for education and health causes.
Her visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center was the latest of several stops she’s made in the year since her husband’s government reignited the cancer moonshot. She has traveled the country and the world hearing from cancer patients and their families, as well as researchers, doctors, nurses and patient advisors.
First Lady Jill Biden; US Senator Bill Cassidy, MD, US Rep. Troy Carter and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell listen to a presentation by researchers from Tulane University, from left: Melody Baddoo; Trang Nguyen; and dr Erik Flemington, Professor of Cancer Research, during a visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans on Friday, March 10, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times Picayune
The Center’s President and CEO, Dr. Joseph Ramos, greeted Biden and the other elected officials and took them on a two-stop tour of the center.
In a lab where researchers study cancer-causing viruses, which account for about 15% to 20% of all cancers, Dr. Erik Flemington, a professor of cancer research at Tulane University Medical Center, said the research is aimed at identifying weaknesses in the virus that could be targeted with vaccines or other therapies.
In a presentation featuring nurses and physicians collaborating virtually on clinical trials with partner institutions in smaller cities like Gulfport, Mississippi, Eileen Mederos, clinical trials network manager at LSU’s Stanley Scott Cancer Center, told Biden that the institutions are collaborating virtually in theirs Review electronic patient records and decide who might be eligible for new drug trials, and then work to get those patients into treatment.
Only 2% to 4% of patients eligible for the trials typically participate, Mederos said. Biden said she would like to see more patients take advantage of the opportunity.
dr Erik Flemington, professor of cancer research at Tulane University, speaks with First Lady Jill Biden and U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, MD, during a visit to the Louisiana Cancer Research Center in New Orleans Friday, March 10, 2023. (Photo by Chris Granger | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
Staff photo by Chris Granger NOLA.com | The Times Picayune
In recent months, the Biden administration’s Cancer Initiative has announced more than 25 new programs, policies, and resources to address five areas:
- Closing the cancer screening gap
- Understand and address environmental pressures
- Reducing the effect of preventable cancers
- Bringing cutting-edge research to patients and communities
- Patient and caregiver support.
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