Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is warning the Trump Administration’s cancelation of childhood cancer research will cost children’s lives.
Yesterday, in a U.S Senate Appropriations hearing about the impact of cuts to medical research, Sen. Ossoff sounded the alarm about the impacts of the Trump Administration’s cancelation of medical research and its impacts on long-term health outcomes – including warning that the cancelations will cost children’s lives.
“It is a tragedy that we have to hold [this hearing] and evidence of the catastrophic incompetence of the Trump Administration that the U.S. Senate is reduced to holding hearings to affirm that yes, clinical research into childhood cancer is worth investment,” Sen. Ossoff said.
“We’re going to pay for this, not just in lives and children’s lives right now, but we’re going to pay for this for a century. Irreversible damage has already been done, and it’s an outrage. And I hope that this hearing demonstrates that there’s bipartisan rejection of these policies here in the United States Senate,” Sen. Ossoff continued.
“Every parent can understand when you hold your precious, innocent, kind child, and you fear the most intense fear that something could happen to them, to think that American parents with children who have cancer now don’t know whether they can enroll that child in a trial, because maybe there’s a way to save that life, is devastating,” Sen. Ossoff later said.
Click here to watch Sen. Ossoff’s line of questioning.
Please find a transcript of Sen. Ossoff’s remarks and questioning below:
SEN. OSSOFF: “Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for convening this hearing today.
“It is a tragedy that we have to hold it and evidence of the catastrophic incompetence of the Trump Administration that the U.S. Senate is reduced to holding hearings to affirm that yes, clinical research into childhood cancer is worth investment.
“A young woman came into my office, Ms. Stenson, just a few weeks ago, and explained to me that she had stage 4 colorectal cancer, three children, and the clinical trial in which she’d been enrolled was paused.
“So those three little kids may now lose their mother. For what? Why? What’s the constituency for this?
“Who out there in the American public is sitting at home demanding that we shut down cancer research and Alzheimer’s research?
“We’re going to pay for this, not just in lives and children’s lives right now, but we’re going to pay for this for a century.
“Irreversible damage has already been done, and it’s an outrage. And I hope that this hearing demonstrates that there’s bipartisan rejection of these policies here in the United States Senate, and I hope that we’ll follow up this hearing with real action.
“And Ms. Stenson, I’ve got a three-and-a-half-year-old little girl at home, and thank God that your little girl is alive.
“Every parent can understand when you hold your precious, innocent, kind child, and you fear the most intense fear that something could happen to them, to think that American parents with children who have cancer now don’t know whether they can enroll that child in a trial, because maybe there’s a way to save that life, is devastating.
“So thank you for being here and bringing your sweet little girl. Thank you for sharing your testimony with us.
“I have here a statement for the record from Emory University in Georgia that includes the following statements: ‘This research has contributed to significant advancements in treating diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and cardiovascular conditions. Federal support for biomedical research is essential. Cuts or stagnation in research funding jeopardize these efforts and could have far reaching consequences for both patients and communities. Even a short interruption of research funding could set back scientific progress for decades. We urge Congress to continue prioritizing bipartisan investment in biomedical research.’
“And Madam Chair, I’d like to ask consent to enter that into the record.
CHAIR COLLINS: “Without objection.”
SEN. OSSOFF: “Mrs. Stenson, my understanding is that Charlie’s participation in clinical trials saved your daughter’s life. Is that right?
MRS. EMILY STENSON: “Yes.”
SEN. OSSOFF: “And because of what you’ve experienced and what you’ve been through in your advocacy, I would imagine that you’ve come into contact with other families similarly situated, whose children are only alive thanks to clinical trials?”
MRS. EMILY STENSON: “Yes.”
SEN. OSSOFF: “I’d like to ask at the end of the dais, sir, forgive me, the multi-decade potential impact of this war on medical research. Talk about the long run, please, sir.”
DR. SUDIP PARIKH: “I can tell you that in the next few months, we’re going to determine … we’re sitting at a crossroads. We are at this moment of extreme opportunity, and you’ve heard it from all the scientists at this table about what’s already been accomplished, and what could be accomplished. Or there’s another path, and that path is this path of the leaked pass back budget.
“That budget, I hope it’s wrong, but it says a 44% cut to NIH funding, and we can talk about administrative costs and talk about everything else. That level of funding means that we aren’t in a race anymore. It means we aren’t in a race anymore. And what that means is there may be cures for disease, there may be there may be investment made in China and elsewhere that leads to some things happening that we would want.
“We’re not going to be able to set the standards. We’re not going to understand access. We’re not going to have, we’re not going to have the ability to even catch up, because the benefits will accrue to some other place.
“But what it really means for patients is that we can’t drive the priorities. We can’t say pediatric cancer. We can’t say Alzheimer’s. We can’t say Parkinson’s. We will have lost that race. And these, these early career scientists that are really in moments of panic right now, they are going to be determinative of whether or not we have a generation of scientists to replace the ones we have today.
“This is not just a 5-year problem. It’s a 10-year, 20-year, 30-year problem that just; it becomes a, not a virtuous cycle, but the opposite, becomes a cycle on the way to a downward slope that we can’t pull out of.
“In Germany, 100 years ago, if you wanted to do chemistry, you spoke German, and in the US, you spoke German, you had to learn German. 20 years from now, what is gonna be the language of science? Is it gonna be English? I don’t know that for certain at this moment, we’re at a crossroads to figure that out. It’s a historical moment.”
SEN. OSSOFF: “Well put, and it’s urgent. Thank you all. Thank you, Madam Chair.”
# # #
