On January 14, when President Obama made an announcement about the cancer moonshot initiative at State of the Union speech, a huge number of cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers were happy and teary-eyed at the same time.

For many people, the idea of executive action to integrate and fasten the ongoing work looking for progress against cancer was quite inspiring and motivational. The US space agency NASA pictures reminded everybody of the massive achievement that the Apollo and various space programs meant to the country.

On January 14, the New York Times gave all a dose of sobriety in an article by Gina Kolata and Gardiner Harris entitled ‘Moonshot to Cure Cancer, to be led by Biden, Relies on Outmoded View of Disease’.

The idea of a powerful government attack on cancer isn't new, as the first ‘war on cancer’ kicked off about a half century back and failed to achieve its goal, mainly because at that time, everyone thought that cancer was one disease.

Since Nixon talked about the need for a cure, a number of presidents have talked on the same issue making us realize that cancer is in fact hundreds of diseases. With time, we learnt that each person's tumor for the same kind of cancer could be genetically unique.

With the passage of time, talks have started lacking quality. The focus and priority have also been affected, as we have started getting more knowledge about how difficult and costly it would be to attain the goal of finding cure.

The cure of cancer demands a lot of research and industry can't do this solely. To achieve the same, right kind of leadership from governmental and political leaders is required for sustaining resource allocations over time to come up with meaningful impacts for patients and their families.