President Joe Biden introduced his “unity agenda for the nation” during his State of the Union address March 1, laying out four issues he thinks Americans can agree to work on together.
The issues include combating the opioid epidemic; addressing the mental health crisis, especially among children; supporting veterans, through increased health care, job training and housing; and ending cancer, one of Biden’s long-term goals.
In discussing mental health, Biden noted one of the evening’s guests was Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who testified before Congress last fall that the social media giant’s algorithms don’t adequately protect young people from harmful content.
“As Frances Haugen, who is here tonight with us, has shown, we must hold social media platforms accountable for the national experiment they’re conducting on our children for profit,” Biden said.
He also called on Congress to fund ARPA-H, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, based on the Defense Department project that led to countless technological breakthroughs. ARPA-H will focus solely on cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and other conditions, Biden said.
“Our goal is to cut cancer death rates by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years, and I think we can do better than that. Turn more cancers from death sentences into treatable diseases,” he said.
Biden delivered his first official State of the Union address March 1. It came amid a Russian invasion into Ukraine and continued challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic, with midterms that could change the balance of power in Congress months away.
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