For generations, the U.S. government has worked to protect the health of its citizens.

It hasn't always succeeded, but it has taken major steps to do so, like this one in 1964.

Out of its long and exhaustive deliberations, the committee has reached the overall judgment

that cigarette smoking is a health hazard.

That's then U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry during a press conference where he laid out the

findings of the report he and his committee prepared on the dangers of cigarette smoking.

It is a judgment of the committee that cigarette smoking contributes substantially to mortality

from certain specific diseases and to the overall death rate.

It would take decades for the majority of Americans to quit smoking and for the tobacco companies

to be held accountable. But the public health initiatives and guidance that began with that report

contributed to a drastic drop in smoking.

Members of the Senate, members of the House, ladies and gentlemen,

we are here today for the purpose of signing the Cancer Act of 1971.

Seven years after, the Surgeon General warned about the dangers of smoking,

President Richard Nixon focused the power of the federal government on beating cancer. We can say this, that for those who have cancer and who are looking for success in this field,

they at least can have the assurance that everything that can be done by government,

everything that can be done by voluntary agencies in this great,

powerful, rich country, now will be done.

That was Nixon the day he signed the Cancer Act of 1971 into law.

By the year 2021, the National Cancer Institute's annual budget had increased 25-fold. Prevention, early detection,

and treatment all improved, and cancer mortality has dropped. Since 2021, overall spending on

cancer research has not decreased in the Trump administration. Some cancer research grants have

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