JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a news conference in Jacksonville on Wednesday to highlight initiatives undertaken by the state to spearhead or otherwise fund cancer-research initiatives during his term, further boosted by his signing of the latest state budget.
”Since 2019 — not even including this year, what we’re going to highlight — we’ve done over $800 million in cancer research and treatment funding, which is an increase of 114% from prior to my time. This year in the budget you’re over $200 million for the various initiatives that we have and so that’s a huge, huge token of support," DeSantis said. “(...) We’re celebrating the success of this most recent budget with respect to all these items and cancer research and funding that are really, really important, and all of that was fully funded, all of that has come through."
The governor spoke that morning at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, joined by Florida first lady Casey DeSantis, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and others.
Casey DeSantis recalled her experience being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and being able to announce the following year that she had beaten it.
“When you get that diagnosis — and I’ll never forget because I collapsed into his arms when, you know, he was the one that answered the call because I wasn’t strong enough to answer the call at that time to find out whether or not I had cancer, and so he was there to hold me, as he’s been through this entire process — but there are times when you have a diagnosis like this, you go to bed at night and you want to wake up and you want to think everything was just a bad dream, but every morning you wake up and you realize that you’re facing a reality of a cancer diagnosis, and it is extremely difficult," she said. “But every day you got to get up and you got to fight, and I’m fighting for my kids, I’m fighting for the governor, because I’m not going to quit."
Watch the news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here.