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STAT+: Cancer research, long protected, feels ‘devastating’ effects under Trump
Cancer research has had bipartisan support. But Trump administration budget cuts and delays threaten to reverse progress of recent years, experts say.
Mark Vieth was stunned when he saw the numbers. Vieth coordinates the Defense Health Research Consortium, which advocates for a Pentagon program that has long received about $1.5 billion a year in federal funds for medical research — nearly half of which typically goes toward cancer.
In the funding bill passed this month, the Republican-led Congress slashed the program’s budget by 57%. “We originally thought that’d be applied proportionally to all programs,” said Vieth.
But instead, Vieth said, it looks like funding will be eliminated to several areas in the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), for which his consortium of patient and provider groups advocates. “No money for kidney cancer,” Vieth said. “No money for pancreatic cancer. No money for lung cancer. It leaves so much completely unfunded. Yeah, wow. It’s pretty devastating.” The omissions were confirmed in congressional documents obtained by STAT.
