Advocacy Under Siege: Trump's War On Cancer

At 21, I was an aspiring concert pianist and film composer with over a decade of pedagogy, discipline and study under my belt.

All I ever wanted was to be the next John Williams.

Then, out of nowhere, I was blindsided by a brain cancer diagnosis. My world shattered. The music stopped. I was thrust into a battle I never saw coming with the grimmest of prognosis for a tumor not seen in someone my age in decades. I was one of 100 in the world.

The fear, the uncertainty—it was indescribable.

Across three months of the most indescribable torture, I’d ever endured—all in the name of “saving my life at any cost”—I begged and pleaded with the universe to not take away my gift of music, because it was all I had that kept me “me.”

I faced the fear. I had no choice. And, somehow, I’m still here.

And now, I watch in disbelief as the very early version of today’s medicines and lifelines that saved me over 29 years ago are being dismantled by political agendas.

It's infuriating. It's personal. And it's a betrayal to every survivor and patient fighting for their lives today. And it sure as hell isn't going unnoticed.

Regardless of your vote, I hope this is not what you’d hoped for.

THE BROAD-DAYLIGHT ASSAIL ON CANCER RESEARCH AND A BIPARTISAN OUTCRY IGNORED

For no substantiated or justified reason, in an act of mind-blowing recklessness, the Trump team has put the brakes on critical NIH grants—choking off funding, halting lifesaving research, and putting thousands of projects in jeopardy.

These are real people—scientists, doctors, researchers—working to find better treatments, safer drugs, and actual cures. These everyday heroes doing God's work are the ones standing between cancer and the people we love.

Slashing NIH funding and capping indirect costs at 15% isn't just a budget tweak—it's a death sentence for research. Labs can't run without money. Trials don't happen without staff. Breakthroughs don't just appear out of thin air. This isn't belt-tightening.

It's sabotage.

Recognizing the existential threat posed by these funding cuts, 22 state attorneys general filed lawsuits to block the policy.

While a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the cuts on February 10, 2025, the administration has employed underhanded tactics to circumvent this legal barrier.

By instructing NIH staff to withhold meeting notices from the Federal Register—a requirement for grant review panels to convene—the administration has effectively frozen the grant approval process, leaving researchers in limbo and critical projects stalled.

Trump's been gunning for NIH funding since day one.

This latest move? Just another round of the same reckless, shortsighted, performative bullshit. Back in 2017, they tried to gut $6 billion from the NIH budget—$1 billion straight out of cancer research.

The reaction? Even Republicans were like, Are you out of your damn mind? That should've been the end of it. Nope.

This administration doesn't give a shit about science, patients, or the people actually doing the work to save lives.

Forget about fiscal responsibility.

Say hello to burning the house down and calling it innovation.

THE LIES THEY TELL

The Trump administration will gaslight the public and tell you they support cancer research. They'll stand at podiums, read pre-packaged talking points, and slap their name on some half-baked initiative to make it look like they care. Maybe they’ll trot out a survivor at the State Of The Union, throw some tax incentives here and there and call it a day.

Here’s what they won’t say on stage:

• Billions in NIH research cuts – The very engine of cancer breakthroughs is running on fumes because they’ve decided science doesn’t matter. Fewer grants, fewer trials, fewer cures. That’s the real policy.

• Halted grants and stalled projects – Researchers don’t just wake up one day and cure cancer. It takes years of sustained funding and continuous study. Pulling the plug on grants midstream kills innovation and wipes out progress overnight.

• Attacks on the ACA, threatening access to treatment – Because nothing screams “patient-first” like making it harder to get chemo. Millions of cancer patients rely on the ACA for access to treatment, but this administration would rather sabotage healthcare than admit it helps people.

• Eliminating funding for survivorship programs – Surviving cancer is just the first battle. The long-term side effects—chronic pain, infertility, organ damage, PTSD—don’t just disappear. Survivorship programs help patients transition back to real life. But instead of supporting them, this administration treats us like defective products they don’t want to pay for.

Policy decisions that benefit industry bottom lines instead of patient lives – The price of cancer drugs has skyrocketed, yet the government bends over backward to protect pharmaceutical profits. Patients are drowning in medical debt while CEOs cash in.

They do not care if you live or die.

If they did, they wouldn’t be gutting the very programs designed to keep people alive. They wouldn’t be stripping funding from researchers working on the next big breakthrough. They wouldn’t be making it harder for cancer patients to access treatment, recover, or afford the medicine keeping them alive.

THE HUMAN COST: REAL PEOPLE, REAL LIVES

There are more than 30 million cancer survivors in the U.S. right now, and every year, another 2 million people are diagnosed. That’s tens of millions of Americans—patients, families, caregivers—who should be enraged that this administration is actively making their lives harder. These policy decisions aren’t just numbers on a budget spreadsheet. They’re going to hurt real people. They will kill real people.

• Cutting NIH funding means fewer clinical trials, stalled research, and promising treatments that never make it out of the lab. The next breakthrough in immunotherapy? The next targeted therapy for rare cancers? It could die on the vine because someone in Washington decided funding cures wasn't a priority.

• Halting grants and sabotaging research means the pipeline of innovation dries up. Fewer new drugs, slower approvals, and patients stuck with outdated, less effective treatments—if they can even afford them.

• Attacking the ACA and gutting access to care means people delaying screenings, skipping treatments, or going bankrupt trying to pay for their survival. Cancer doesn’t wait for politics, and it sure as hell doesn’t care if your insurance lapses because lawmakers decided your life wasn’t worth the cost.

• Slashing survivorship programs means patients who fought like hell to survive are left stranded, without the resources they need to navigate life after treatment—the side effects, the financial toxicity, and the emotional toll.

In part, or combined any of this destroys the very nonprofits and advocacy groups that have been fighting on the front lines for years. The lifeblood of these organizations—grants, research dollars, industry partnerships—dries up when the mercurial federal policy chokes the funding pipeline.

Less money means fewer programs, fewer support services, fewer resources for patients who are already drowning in a system built to fail them. Now imagine established nonprofits having to shut down vital programs, leaving newly diagnosed patients with nowhere to turn.

Our government is actively making it harder for us to live.

A CALL TO EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY RED-BLOODED AMERICAN CANCER SURVIVOR, PATIENT, CAREGIVER, AND ADVOCATE

If you're pissed off, good. You should be.

Regardless of who you voted for, we did not ask for this.

This is personal.

So, drop your Red and Blue bullshit because it's not about left or right—it's about whether we as a nation stand up for the millions of Americans who have fought through the hell of cancer and deserve a future where their lives matter more than political games.

No one asked for this. No one. Prove me wrong.

We fought for our lives — and the lives we've lost — once.

We can fight for them again.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES!

Flood the zone, as they say. Demand accountability.

If they gut our research, delay our treatments, or cut our programs, we make them answer for it. All they care about is getting reelected. That's the only thing that matters, and the only power we have at the ballot, be it Federal, State, or Local.

They think cancer survivors are too beaten down, too tired, too weak to fight back. Let's prove them dead wrong at every election, every town hall, ever policy meeting, every Hill Day, and every public forum.

This is total bullshit and if you're not pissed, there's something wrong with you.