Gore Urges New Cancer War, Vows to Boost Research Funding if Elected

Vice President Al Gore on Monday called for a new war on cancer, vowing in a major campaign speech to more than double funding for cancer research if he is elected president.

“My commitment to this fight is personal--and absolute,” declared Gore, who lost his only sibling, an older sister who smoked, to lung cancer in 1984.

“No one can promise a cure for cancer,” the vice president told an audience of medical researchers at Thomas Jefferson University here. “But we can do better.”

In a brief interview aboard Air Force Two, Gore said fresh knowledge gained through genetic research in recent years has reached a point now that the nation must escalate its efforts to combat a disease that strikes one in four Americans.

“We know enough from research progress now that I want to go further and faster,” Gore said.

As he spoke, the shirt-sleeved vice president exuded total confidence, evincing none of the deference to President Clinton that he has unfailingly displayed since their election in 1992.

The vice president’s call to double funding for cancer research within the National Institutes of Health is noteworthy in part because Clinton has been criticized on Capitol Hill by some members of both parties for not giving the agency more money this year. Led by Sens. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), many have called for a doubling in funding for NIH research into all diseases.

Gore’s latest attempt to distance himself from Clinton on a matter of policy comes at a time when sniping between aides to the president and the vice president are reaching an unprecedented--and public--level.

Over the weekend, Clinton aides were quoted as saying that the president was irked by Gore’s public efforts to distance himself from Clinton by harshly criticizing the president’s conduct in the Monica S. Lewinsky affair while emphasizing his own morals.

Chris Lehane, Gore’s press secretary, said on Monday that Clinton and Gore continue to have “a fantastic relationship.”

But a senior Gore political aide, asking for anonymity, said that no one should be surprised by the growing tensions between Clinton and Gore, whose interests will continue to diverge as one focuses on his legacy and the other on running for president.

“What’s going on is a dynamic that happens whenever a vice president steps out. It’s a part of the process. And the tensions are refracted through that prism,” the aide said.

“The president’s economic policies have given us a great platform to build on. But every campaign is about the future,” he added.

On a policy level, as someone who has been at Clinton’s side at virtually every major policy announcement, Gore’s increasing distance from the Clinton agenda could hardly be more noticeable.

On Monday, for instance, as Clinton spoke at the White House about possible tax cuts and setting aside most of the growing budget surplus to preserve Social Security, Gore was leaving town to attend fund-raisers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

And today, Gore will be wooing Democratic donors in Tampa, Fla., and Miami while, back in Washington, the president is announcing his plans to overhaul Medicare.

In his cancer funding address here, Gore said he would more than double, over a period of five years, NIH’s cancer research funds to “nearly $9 billion.”

He also challenged geneticists to identify by 2002--as they hope to do--every major human gene that predisposes humans to cancer.

Gore also called for a fivefold increase in the number of cancer patients who are eligible for potentially lifesaving clinical trials at the National Cancer Institute, which is a part of the NIH.

For several years, Harkin and Mack have been lobbying to double NIH’s overall research funding. Last year, they won a $2-billion increase, representing a growth of about 15%, a Harkin aide said.

But this year, the Clinton administration sought only a 2.1% increase in such funding, which disappointed many institute backers.

Gore’s cancer proposal, according to Harkin’s office, amounts to an endorsement of that part of the Harkin-Mack proposal to double all NIH research funding.

Current NIH cancer research funding is put at $3.36 billion.

Steps he outlined, Gore predicted, “will cut by 700,000, over the next decade, the number of people diagnosed with cancer each year.”

Gore also has delivered major policy addresses on improving education and on increasing the role of religious organizations in solving the nation’s social problems.