EXCLUSIVE Harvard doctor: I was on the cusp of a cure for cancer, then Trump cut my funding... now thousands could die needlessly
A Harvard doctor studying cutting-edge therapies for cancer and lung disease has revealed how his research has been brutally axed by President Trump.
Dr John Quackenbush detailed the sudden cut to his funding to understand how the devastating diseases affect and progress differently in men and women - a hurdle that has stifled progress on finding cures.
The 63-year-old scientist who has been a professor at the prestigious university for the last 20 years explained that the about $2.4 million research project was meant to find personalized and improved treatments for both sexes.
The project had been submitted in November 2020 and was approved by former President Joe Biden 's administration in September 2021 - but the grant was axed with no prior notice on April 4 this year.
Dr Quackenbush believes it was wrongly terminated as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on the government's bankrolling of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) research projects.
He told DailyMail.com that the funding slashes will worsen the research crisis and set medical advancement back by decades.
'Females have twice the lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer's than males do,' he added. 'Males have a much higher risk of developing colon cancer but respond better to chemotherapy.
'We know and have known for decades that many diseases are different in males or females. But nobody has been able to scratch the surface of why these differences exist and how we might be able to use these differences to better treat disease in everyone.'
'So, I submitted a grant application about four years ago in which we had proposed to better understand what drives some of these differences,' the Professor noted.
The project has already contributed to nearly 30 peer-reviewed papers on new methods that shed light on sex differences in managing chronic diseases.
The professor of bioinformatics at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health revealed that his team had submitted an application, asking the National Institute of Health for a renewal of their ongoing project in November 2024 during the Presidential election.
But while applications are usually reviewed and approved within months, theirs kept being delayed.
'It was supposed to first be reviewed in February, then we found out it's going to be reviewed in March, then we found out it's going to be reviewed at the end of March, then we found out it was going to be reviewed in April.
'About two weeks ago, we checked on the NIH website and there was no date for the review. And we were astonished, because everything pointed to this grant being reviewed.'
After seeing the sudden change in their application status, Dr Quackenbush approached their program officer for information.
But much to his dismay, the official told him that the specific program they had applied to had been terminated by the federal government.
This program, announced in a 2022 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) published by the NIH, solicited research grant proposals to address 'gaps in our current understanding of diseases and conditions in women are the result of the continued over-reliance on male models'.
Dr Quackenbush believes it was a part of the latest budget cuts by the Trump administration as it did not align with current policy.
He said: 'They're not just terminating grants, they're terminating whole programs that are funding research into areas that don't align with current policy.
'And you know, we shouldn't be in a position where the the opinions of individuals in government about what's appropriate or what's inappropriate should be dictating how we look at these fundamental scientific questions.
'The cuts that are happening are kind of across the board. It's almost happening at random. It's completely irrational. There's sort of no rhyme or reason about any of this.'
On January 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting all 'equity-related' federal grants or contracts in an effort to end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
Scientists have since alleged that agency officials are being told not to approve grants that include the words 'women,' 'gender' or 'diversity' - of which comparing disease in men and women was a focus Dr Quackenbush's project.
In an April 11 letter to Harvard, the Trump administration called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university and changes to its admissions policies
In the US, it is estimated that nearly 1million women receive a cancer diagnosis each year, while an estimated one in two men will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives.
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men in the US, with 35,000 men dying the disease each year.
Meanwhile, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women - killing over 40,000 each year.
Since submitting the project in 2021, the Professor and his team have made 'tremendous progress' but now these cancellations threaten long-term research and training, potentially delaying future treatments by years.
Their groundbreaking research has already contributed to nearly 30 other peer-reviewed papers that have focused on state-of-the-art forms of treatment and their application for a range of chronic illnesses including cancers and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - a progressive lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe.
He commented: 'If scientists [are] really committed to improving the human condition, then we should be in a position to look at health in everyone, to understand how to improve the health of everyone and that should be our fundamental priority.
'And you know, we shouldn't be in a position where the the opinions of individuals in government should override scientifically sound approaches to addressing basic questions in human health.
In an April 11 letter to Harvard, the Trump administration called for broad government and leadership reforms at the university and changes to its admissions policies.
It also demanded the university audit views of diversity on campus and stop recognizing some student clubs - arguing that campuses had allowed antisemitism to go unchecked at protests last year.
However, Harvard President Alan Garber refused to agree and hours later, the government froze over $2.2 billion in federal scientific grants given to the University.
When asked why the current administration had targeted Harvard's medical research in regards to anti-Semitic harassment, Dr Quackenbush said: 'The rationalization that is being presented to the general public is absolutely ludicrous.
'If there are allegations of anti-Semitism against Harvard or any other university, the rational approach would be to do an investigation to find out what the causes are, to find out whether or not the responses were appropriate and to take steps to remedy that, to prevent it from happening.'
He also told the website that the halt in federal grants not only impacted medical research but also put generations of upcoming scientists and their discoveries in jeopardy.
'We use this [money] to train the next generation of scientists. Our PhD students and our postdoctoral fellows, the training they get is largely an apprenticeship.
'My PhD students come and work with me because we're going to go into the lab and we're going to work together, they're going to see how to do science and they're going to learn by doing it. You take away my research grants, you take away my abilities and train the next generation.
'We're seeing people who are doing science get laid off. We're seeing projects that were had been running for years being terminated. Even if they turned on the funding tomorrow, the damage is done.
'It takes years to build a research program, and as we're seeing, it takes just minutes to potentially destroy that in ways that could take even longer to rebuild. And we're not making these choices for rational reasons.'
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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
NIH scientists go public to denounce Trump's deep cuts in health research
In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. 'Dissent,' he said, 'is the very essence of science.' That commitment is being put to the test. On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, a frontal challenge to 'policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe'. It says: 'We dissent.' In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, more than 90 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter – and their careers on the line. They went public in the face of a 'culture of fear and suppression' they say Donald Trump's administration has spread through the federal civil service. 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'Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,' it says, 'it wastes $4 million.' The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya but also sent to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr and members of Congress who oversee the NIH, was endorsed by 250 anonymous employees of the agency besides the 92 who signed. Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Senator Angela Alsobrooks to talk about what is happening at the NIH. At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration. 'I want people to know how bad things are at NIH,' Norton told the Associated Press. The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya's own Great Barrington Declaration of October 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School. His declaration drew together like-minded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive Covid-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH. 'He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours,' said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration. As chief of the health systems and interventions research branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who have been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. But sudden cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. 'So much of it is gone – my work,' she said. The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because 'I don't want to be a collaborator' in the political manipulation of biomedical science. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. 'We have a saying in basic science,' he said. 'You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients. 'We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,' he added. But that will not happen, he said, if Trump's Republican administration prevails with its searing cuts to grants. The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes or the NIH. Employees from all 27 NIH institutes and centers gave their support to the declaration. Most who signed are intimately involved with evaluating and overseeing extramural research grants. The letter asserts that 'NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety' and that the agency is shirking commitments to trial participants who 'braved personal risk to give the incredible gift of biological samples, understanding that their generosity would fuel scientific discovery and improve health'. The Trump administration has gone at public health research on several fronts, both directly, as part of its broad effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion values throughout the bureaucracy, and as part of its drive to starve some universities of federal money. This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science', the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. A Signal group became the place for participants to sort through NIH chatter on Reddit, discern rumor from reality and offer mutual support. The declaration took shape in that group and as word spread neighbor to neighbor in NIH offices. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a linchpin in science. With that in place, he said in a statement in April, 'NIH scientists can be certain they are afforded the ability to engage in open, academic discourse as part of their official duties and in their personal capacities without risk of official interference, professional disadvantage or workplace retaliation.' Now it will be seen whether that is enough to protect those NIH employees challenging the Trump administration and him. 'There's a book I read to my kids, and it talks about how you can't be brave if you're not scared,' said Norton, who has three young children. 'I am so scared about doing this, but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only going to get harder to speak up. 'Maybe I'm putting my kids at risk by doing this,' she added. 'And I'm doing it anyway because I couldn't live with myself otherwise.'
Reuters
5 hours ago
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NIH scientists speak out over estimated $12 billion in Trump funding cuts
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The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
NIH scientists go public to criticize Trump's deep cuts in public health research
In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. 'Dissent," he said, 'is the very essence of science.' That commitment is being put to the test. On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, a frontal challenge to 'policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.' It says: "We dissent." In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, more than 90 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. Confronting a 'culture of fear' They went public in the face of a 'culture of fear and suppression' they say President Donald Trump 's administration has spread through the federal civil service. 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,' the declaration says. Named for the agency's headquarters location in Maryland, the Bethesda Declaration details upheaval in the world's premier public health research institution over the course of mere months. It addresses the abrupt termination of 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12 billion and some of the human costs that have resulted, such as cutting off medication regimens to participants in clinical trials or leaving them with unmonitored device implants. In one case, an NIH-supported study of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti had to be stopped, ceasing antibiotic treatment mid-course for patients. In a number of cases, trials that were mostly completed were rendered useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. 'Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,' it says, 'it wastes $4 million.' The mask comes off The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya but also sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH, was endorsed by 250 anonymous employees of the agency besides the 92 who signed. Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., to talk about what's happening at the NIH. At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration. 'I want people to know how bad things are at NIH," Norton told The Associated Press. The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya's own Great Barrington Declaration of October 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School. His declaration drew together likeminded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive COVID-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH. 'He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours," said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration. Cancer research is sidelined As chief of the Health Systems and Interventions Research Branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who've been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. But sudden cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. "So much of it is gone — my work,' she said. The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because 'I don't want to be a collaborator' in the political manipulation of biomedical science. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. 'We have a saying in basic science,' he said. 'You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients. 'We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,' he added. But that won't happen, he said, if Trump's Republican administration prevails with its searing cuts to grants. The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes or the NIH. Dissenters range across the breadth of NIH Employees from all 27 NIH institutes and centers gave their support to the declaration. Most who signed are intimately involved with evaluating and overseeing extramural research grants. The letter asserts that 'NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety' and that the agency is shirking commitments to trial participants who 'braved personal risk to give the incredible gift of biological samples, understanding that their generosity would fuel scientific discovery and improve health.' The Trump administration has gone at public health research on several fronts, both directly, as part of its broad effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion values throughout the bureaucracy, and as part of its drive to starve some universities of federal money. A blunt ax swings This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,' the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. A Signal group became the place for participants to sort through NIH chatter on Reddit, discern rumor from reality and offer mutual support. The declaration took shape in that group and as word spread neighbor to neighbor in NIH offices. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a lynchpin in science. With that in place, he said in a statement in April, 'NIH scientists can be certain they are afforded the ability to engage in open, academic discourse as part of their official duties and in their personal capacities without risk of official interference, professional disadvantage or workplace retaliation." Now it will be seen whether that's enough to protect those NIH employees challenging the Trump administration and him. 'There's a book I read to my kids, and it talks about how you can't be brave if you're not scared,' said Norton, who has three young children. "I am so scared about doing this, but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only going to get harder to speak up. 'Maybe I'm putting my kids at risk by doing this," she added. "And I'm doing it anyway because I couldn't live with myself otherwise.' ___
