[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 3, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H502-H503]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                          CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Foster) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, last month President Obama came to this 
Chamber to speak, inter alia, of a moonshot to cure cancer under the 
leadership of Vice President Biden. This week the President announced 
specific plans to invest $1 billion to fund that moonshot.
  As a scientist and as the manager of large scientific projects, I am 
naturally inclined to be skeptical of such bold claims from 
politicians. President Nixon famously launched the same war on cancer 
in 1971. Tragically, we continue to wage that war today.
  More recently, Andrew von Eschenbach, the director of the National 
Cancer Institute under President Bush, set the goal of eliminating 
suffering and death from cancer by 2015. We all know, unfortunately, 
that that goal was never met.
  So why is this cancer moonshot any different? Is this a moment like 
1961 when President Kennedy stood before a joint session of Congress 
and announced his goal of sending a man to the Moon by the end of the 
decade and succeeded? Or is this a moment like 1971 when President 
Nixon declared war on cancer and failed?
  I believe that President Obama's cancer initiative will succeed, and 
the reason that it will succeed is brutally simple: Science, basic 
science and technology that exists today and did not exist 45 years 
ago; technology that was generated by decades of curiosity-driven 
federally funded research paid for by the United States taxpayer.
  There are many decades of federally supported basic scientific 
advances that will allow the Obama-Biden cancer moonshot to succeed: 
The ability to fully genome sequence individual cancers, the ability to 
manipulate the genome and produce animal models to study and to test 
the basic mechanisms of cancer, and immunotherapy treatment, which was 
named Science magazine's breakthrough of the year in 2013 and has been 
capturing so many headlines around the world.
  Immunotherapy is an ingenious and revolutionary treatment that uses 
the body's own immune system to fight cancer. Since time immemorial, 
there have been stories of miraculous remissions of cancer when 
patients with apparently incurable cancers have experienced spontaneous 
and often complete remissions. These were often attributed to an act of 
God or perhaps the moral character of the patient.

[[Page H503]]

  We now understand that for most, if not all, of these remissions that 
they happen when the body's immune system, which has evolved over 
millions of years of combat with foreign viral and bacterial invaders, 
finally understands that cancer is an enemy and has all the horsepower 
that it needs to attack and to clean it up. Immunotherapy now gives us 
the scientific understanding of how to mass produce those miracles.
  This would never have been discovered without decades of sustained 
Federal investment in R&D, and although the breakthroughs in 
immunotherapy rest upon a large pyramid of federally funded research, 
there are two parallel threads of federally funded research that 
directly led to this breakthrough.
  One was pioneered by Jim Allison, then of UC Berkeley, and Arlene 
Sharpe of Harvard Medical School. The other was pioneered by Lieping 
Chen of the Mayo Clinic, all three labs using Federal funds to study 
how the immune system is controlled and how it knows to kill foreign 
cells but not its own cells. This was a fascinating scientific 
question, but not one which was obviously relevant to cancer.
  All three labs were sponsored by basic science peer-reviewed grants 
from the National Institutes of Health, which I mention, Mr. Speaker, 
because of the way that peer review seems to be coming under attack by 
members of your party. In the 1990s these groups were all working on 
what became known as immune checkpoints, which are regulatory pathways 
to turn down the immune system to prevent it from attacking its own 
body.
  Even once this basic discovery was made, the established 
pharmaceutical companies would not touch it, but in 1999 Medarex, a 
small biotech in Princeton, New Jersey, funded by the National 
Institutes of Health, took on the project. Ten years later, only after 
Medarex was well on the way to showing that their cancer immunotherapy 
approach worked in humans, it was purchased by Bristol-Myers Squibb for 
$2.4 billion. Now there are many drug companies developing checkpoint 
inhibitor drugs to treat cancer as well as other immune system-related 
treatments for cancer.
  So, as I mentioned before, the Obama-Biden cancer moonshot will 
likely succeed because of the technology and basic science that was 
generated by decades of curiosity-driven scientific research funded by 
the United States Government.
  Mr. Speaker, I am the representative of U.S. citizens, but one who 
does not share your party's monomania about small government or a 
desire to keep our government small and indebted simply to provide low 
tax rates for wealthy donors because Americans know that small 
government does not accomplish great things, like sending a man to the 
Moon or curing cancer.
  The following is a complete text of my remarks:
  Mr. Speaker, last month, President Obama came to this chamber to 
speak, inter alia, of a ``moonshot'' to cure cancer, under the 
leadership of Vice President Biden. This week the President announced 
specific plans to invest one billion dollars to fund that ``moonshot.'' 
As a scientist, and as the manager of large scientific projects, I am 
naturally inclined to be skeptical of such bold claims from 
politicians. President Richard Nixon famously launched the same ``war 
on cancer'' in 1971. Tragically, we continue to wage that war today. 
More recently, Andrew von Eschenbach, the director of the National 
Cancer Institute under President Bush, set the goal of ``eliminating 
suffering and death from cancer by 2015.'' We all know, unfortunately, 
that goal was not met. So why is this ``cancer moonshot'' any 
different?
  Is this a moment like 1961, when President Kennedy stood before a 
joint session of Congress and announced his goal of putting a man on 
the moon by the end of the decade--and succeeded? Or a moment like 1971 
when President Nixon declared War on Cancer and failed?
  I believe that President Obama's cancer initiative will succeed. And 
the reason it will succeed is brutally simple: science. Basic science 
and technology that exists today, and did not exist 45 years ago. 
Technology that was generated by decades of curiosity-driven scientific 
research--paid for by the United States Taxpayer. There are many 
decades of federally-supported basic scientific advances that will 
allow the Obama-Biden cancer moonshot succeed: the ability to fully 
genome sequence individual cancers, the ability to manipulate the 
genome to produce animal models to study and test the basic mechanisms 
of cancer, and immunotherapy treatment, which was named Science 
Magazine's breakthrough of the year in 2013, and which has been 
capturing so many headlines around the world. Immunotherapy is an 
ingenious and revolutionary treatment that uses the body's own immune 
system to fight cancer.
  Since time immemorial, there have been stories of ``miraculous 
remissions'' of cancer, where patients with apparently incurable 
cancers have experienced spontaneous and often complete remissions. 
These were often attributed to an act of God, or perhaps the moral 
character of the patient.
  We now understand that most, if not all, of these remissions happen 
when the body's immune system, which has evolved over millennia of 
combat with foreign viral and bacterial invaders, finally understands 
the cancer as an enemy, and has all of the horsepower it needs to 
attack it and to clean it up. And immunotherapy now gives us the 
scientific understanding of how to mass produce those miracles. But 
this would never have been discovered without decades of sustained 
federal investments in R&D.
  Although the breakthroughs of immunotherapy rest on a pyramid of 
largely taxpayer-funded research, there are two parallel threads of 
federally funded research that directly led to this breakthrough. One 
was pioneered by Jim Allison, then of UC Berkeley, and Arlene Sharpe, 
of Harvard Medical School. The other was pioneered by Lieping Chen of 
the Mayo Clinic. All three labs were using federal funds to study how 
the immune system is controlled, how it knows to kill foreign cells but 
not its own cells. This was a fascinating scientific question, but not 
one that was obviously relevant to cancer. All three labs are supported 
by basic-science from the National Institutes of Health peer-reviewed 
grants. Which I mention, Mr. Speaker, because of the way that peer 
review is coming under attack by members of your party.
  In the 1990s, they were all working on what have come to be known as 
immunological checkpoints, which are regulatory pathways that turn down 
the immune system to prevent it from attacking its own body.
  Even once this basic discovery was made, the established 
pharmaceutical companies would not touch it. But in 1999, Medarex, a 
small biotech in Princeton, NJ, funded by the National Institutes of 
Health, took on the project. Ten years later, only after Medarex was 
well on the way to showing that their cancer immunotherapy approach 
worked in humans, it was purchased by Bristol-Myers-Squibb for 2.4 
billion dollars. There are now many drug companies developing 
checkpoint inhibitor drugs to treat cancer, as well as other immune-
system-related treatments for cancer.
  So as I mentioned before, the Obama-Biden cancer moonshot will likely 
succeed, because of the technology and basic science that was generated 
by decades of curiosity-driven scientific research--funded by the 
United States Government. Or, funded by big government, Mr. Speaker, as 
your colleagues like to say. Funded by a big government, directed by a 
vast, unelected, overpaid, lazy, wasteful federal bureaucracy. A 
bureaucracy that will save millions of American lives. I often hear my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle claim we don't need to make 
federal investments in R&D, because if it's worth doing, the private 
sector will do it. Immunotherapy is a perfect example of why that logic 
doesn't work.
  The private sector took over, but not until researchers spent decades 
and millions of taxpayer dollars elucidating the basic science and 
proving this method could work.
  I also hear my colleagues cherry picking studies that they can't make 
sense of and label them as wasteful spending, then trumpeting their 
success in cutting ``wasteful'' government spending. When the truth is 
those ``wasteful'' programs often lead to breakthroughs like 
immunotherapy. The cancer moonshot being led by Vice President Biden is 
likely to succeed, but only because of sustained investments in federal 
funding for research and development. As we work in the coming months 
to develop a budget, I hope my colleagues will keep this in mind. I am 
the representative of U.S. citizens, Mr. Speaker, but one that does not 
share your party's monomania about ``small government'', or a desire to 
keep government small and indebted simply to provide low tax rates for 
its wealthy donors. Because Americans know that small government does 
not accomplish great things, like sending a man to the moon, or curing 
cancer.

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