The cancer charity of President-elect Joe Biden has spent the majority of the money on staff payroll and gave none to research, as per reports. The tax filings viewed by the Daily Mail showed that The Biden Cancer Initiative amassed $4,809619 in contributions but spent $3,070,301 on the salaries, as per reports.
Joe and his wife Jill Biden started The Biden Cancer Initiative in 2017 for helping to find a cure and solutions to increase progress in the prevention of cancer. But it appeared that no grants were offered out during the first two years of the operation. Gregory Simon, who was the president of The Biden Cancer Initiative and former Pfizer executive reportedly got $429,850 during the 2018 fiscal year.
Simon, who was the spearhead of the Obama administration's cancer taskforce was given nearly double his 2017 earnings which were $224,539. The former chief of staff of Obama's Cancer Moonshot Task Force named Danielle Carnival received a payment of $258,207 in 2018.
Tax Filings of the Charity
The Director of Communications, Director of Engagement, and the Director of Science Policy got six-figure salaries as well. The tax filings showed The Biden Cancer Initiative spent $56,738 on the conferences and $59,356 on the travel expenses in the tax filings of 2017, as per reports.
The numbers increased in the next year as the conference costs got raised to a staggering $742,953 for the conferences and $97,149 on travel. The boxes that indicated the grant distributions stayed blank, which suggested that no money was put forth by the charity.
The charity was made after the oldest son of Joe Biden, Beau lost his life in 2015 after suffering from brain cancer. Biden led the cancer taskforce of Obama while he was serving as the vice president. After leaving office in 2017, the charity continued its quest of discovering treatments for cancer.
"The Biden Cancer Initiative will develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care, and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes," a press release from that year said. The charity suspended its operations in July 2019.
"Today, we are suspending activities given our unique circumstances. We remain personally committed to the cause, but at this time will have to pause efforts,' Simon said, as reported by the Associated Press. "We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission," he added.
The Biden Cancer Initiative has taken in many million dollars in direct funding for the operations, but the bulk of the money that supported the partnerships it promotes came as indirect pledges. That money did not go directly to the nonprofit but was managed by the participating companies for funding their research and work, as per reports.
