Donald Trump has officially kicked off his 2020 campaign by making big claims while traveling around the country.
On Thursday, the celebrity-in-chief told a crowd of supporters gathered at a rally at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati that he will cure pediatric cancer and eradicate AIDS if he is re-elected. “The things we’re doing in our country today, there’s never been anything like it. We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America, and curing childhood cancer very shortly,” he said.
According to USA Today, both these dubious claims were first made in his February 2019 State of the Union address, in which he said he would “set aside $500 million for research into pediatric cancer over 10 years.”
Trump also claimed that he would end AIDS in 10 years as well and while experts say that a cure for both is on the long term horizon, Trump is still off in his assessment of how soon it can happen.
According to The Kaiser Health News, the cure rate for pediatric cancer is already at 80%, specifically with regards to Childhood leukemia “But for other pediatric cancers, the cure rates haven’t changed in 20 years,” the publication reports.
With regard to setting aside $500 million for research, Trump’s boasting works out to about $50 million a year over the next 10 years- which is little more than a 10% budget increase.
“To put it in perspective: The $500 million figure pales in comparison to other medical research initiatives that previous presidents have outlined amid the pomp and circumstance of this annual speech,” Victoria Knight of Kaiser Health wrote.
And for his claims of ending AIDS/HIV transmissions “very soon,” the facts are that it is “doable but daunting,” according to Knight.
Ending the transmission of the AIDS-causing virus is “a goal long sought by public health advocates,” Kaiser reported. “But even given the vital gains made in drug therapies and understanding of the disease over nearly 40 years, it is not an easy undertaking.”
Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services Secretary, who provided details of the initiative after Trump’s announcement, said the administration will target viral hot spots by providing local groups more resources, using data to track the spread of the disease and creating local task forces to bolster prevention and treatment.
Azar said Trump’s initiative will seek to reduce new infections by 75% in the next five years and to upwards of 90% within the next decade.
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