See Ya Later, Cure for Cancer!

The NIH just got told to cancel $2.6 billion in research contracts. Not trim. Not postpone. Cancel. This isn’t a rounding error. It’s a red flag.

For someone like me who’s lived at the intersection of science, advocacy, and human suffering for nearly three decades, this news hits hard. I’m still here because research happened. And because someone, somewhere, fought for that research to exist. When government agencies are forced to pull back investment in biomedical R&D, it’s the patients who feel it first. Not in theory. In real life. In the form of missed diagnoses, fewer trials, and years of delay in treatments that could’ve been available sooner.

The timing? Brutal. NIH was finally beginning to shift toward more equitable funding, focusing on long-overlooked communities and conditions, including rare cancers and young adult oncology—where I've spent most of my career. This reversal yanks the rug out from that progress and puts countless research teams, early-career scientists, and patients back into limbo.

Forget about researchers losing grants. This BS about the 21-year-old being told there are no trials left to try. It's about the caregiver begging for an option that got shelved because of a funding freeze. And it’s about the advocates—sisyphus-pushing rock climbers like us—who’ve spent our lives to bring visibility to millions, only to be told “not now.”

So here's the question: If science can’t count on stability, how can patients count on science?

Where should we be focusing our collective outrage, and more importantly—our action?