The White House restarted its “moonshot” initiative towards ending cancer this week. During the event announcing its relaunch, Vice President Kamala Harris became emotional as she recalled her mother’s struggle with cancer.
During the relaunch of the initiative at the White House, Harris paid tribute to her mother, breast cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan, who passed away from colon cancer in 2009. Harris became emotional as she recalled her mother’s struggle with the disease. Harris also honored her mother’s work in cancer research.
“After a lifetime working to end cancer, cancer ended my mother’s life. I will never forget the day she sat my sister and me down and told us she had been diagnosed with colon cancer,” Harris shared. “It was one of the worst days of my life, and sadly, millions and millions of people in our country have had.”
“I watched her courageous fight. But after countless rounds of chemo, her body gave out. She was transferred from the hospital to hospice. And in fact, one of the last questions she asked the hospice nurse was, are my daughters going to be okay. I miss my mother every day. And I carry her memory with me wherever I go,” shared Harris.
Gopalan was a biomedical scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research led to advancements in understanding hormones and breast cancer.
The initiative is also close to US President Joe Biden’s heart, with his son Beau Biden dying from brain cancer in 2015. Biden said that this was one of the reasons why he ran for the presidency.
In other related news, Harris said that Congress did not act on the key issue of immigration reform, as she is tasked by the administration to take on the issue in a diplomatic capacity through addressing its root causes. In an interview with Telemundo, Harris was asked about how immigration reform is going to be one of the dominant issues in the coming midterm elections.
“The first piece of legislation that was sent to Congress was immigration reform,” said Harris. The legislation would legalize more than 11 million undocumented immigrants that are currently in the US while also removing the barriers to family-based immigration, including visa backlogs and employment-based green card requirements.
With an evenly divided Senate, the proposal had little chance of receiving 10 more Republican votes to cross the Senate threshold. Harris said that the legislation would indicate that there would be a pathway to citizenship, but that Congress did not act.