No. of Recommendations: 12
Headline: "Trump hits NIH with ‘devastating’ freezes on meetings, travel, communications, and hiring.
A friend texted yesterday that his pancreatic cancer is no longer in remission. And...I am the beneficiary of NIH controlled clinical research, stage 2, 3 and 4 clinical trials. I am still involved with ongoing trials that may benefit my family and others with rapidly progressing immunotherapies. At the same time the ignorant arrogant asshole Trump is eliminating pollution reducing regulations. More carcinogens for everybody!
It would be nice if the heaven/hell myth was true, for there would certainly be a special spot in hell for an evil, arrogant, ignorant grifter like Trump after he is diagnosed and suffers the most painful of broadly metastasized Stage 4 abdominal cancers.
From a clinical researcher:
-----Earlier this year, I posted about about the work from my lab advancing a new class of drugs for pancreatic cancer into the clinic. The clinical trials are progressing remarkably fast and the stories from my clinical colleagues are in some cases stunning. To ensure that this work continues moving as fast as possible, last year I submitted a major grant to the National Institutes of Health. The grant received a very strong score, though it is not guaranteed to be funded. A meeting is scheduled for Febrary to decide whether to fund my grant. If not funded, I will need to resubmit, a process that will take at least another 9 months.
Last week, the new presidential administration issued an executive memo that has effectively paralyzed the entire NIH and therefore the entire biomedical research enterprise in America. Among the restrictions, the NIH is BANNED from holding any meetings to review grant applications or make decisions to fund any grants. That includes my grant, and thousands of others that propose to study and treat cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and all other diseases. In addition, all NIH employees are BANNED from speaking to members of the public.
Cancer doesn't care if you are a republican or a democrat. This is not a partisan issue. When I post about my work on this site, the thumbs-up and appreication come from people on all sides of the political spectrum. When my clinical colleagues treat a cancer patient, they don't ask for party affiliation. I used to post a lot of politics on FB. I stopped because it was only raising my blood pressure and frankly I had too much work to do. I'm speaking out now to convey my first-hand experience of how this new administration is harming not only me (and the two dozen scientists I employ), but the hopes of every cancer patient in this country.
Words cannot express how damaging this sudden edict is. And how much federal money is just being burned and flushed. Meetings have been cancelled for THOUSANDS of scientists who have already spent federal money on flights, hotels, and conference venues. Most of that will be non-refundable. This knee-jerk, bull-in-a-china-store approach to governance has cost the US government millions of dollars in the first few days.
As I type this, I'm sitting on a zoom call for a federally supported consortium. The call was supposed to be to plan our annual in-person meeting where scientists will present our latest findings on how to coax the healthy parts of a patient's body to attack a pancreatic tumor. As of this moment, this meeting, for which 55 hotel rooms, flights, and a conference venue have already been non-refundably booked, may have to be cancelled. One person did this.
If you support biomedical research in America, please contact your senators and representatives and implore them to exert pressure on the new administration and reverse this and other policies that are hobbling the function of the federal government. This is helping NO ONE. The best way to fix our country is not to burn it to the ground.
