While many of Donald Trump’s executive orders have been radical and controversial, the president’s latest order was the sort of move that has few critics. USA Today reported:
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 30 doubling the current federal budget for research into childhood cancer using artificial intelligence, building on a 2019 initiative he established to create a data system to collect, standardize and share information on every child diagnosed with cancer in the United States.
In the Republican’s first term, the White House created something called the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, which receives $50 million per year. Now, it’ll receive an additional $50 million to explore possible uses of AI in pediatric cancer research.
What’s wrong with this? Nothing. Time will tell whether these efforts bear fruit, but it’s tough to look askance at research intended to combat childhood cancer.
There is, however, a concern as to the broader context: Investing an additional $50 million into pediatric cancer research does not make up for the Trump administration’s other proposed cuts to cancer research.
The Trump White House has, for example, proposed slashing funding for the National Cancer Institute by billions of dollars, shrinking its budget to levels unseen in decades. His conspiratorial and anti-science health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scrapped funding for mRNA research, despite clinical trials showing mRNA-based vaccines increase survival in patients with deadly cancers.
For that matter, I’ve lost count of how many cancer-related research grants at universities have been cut off without explanation.
A few weeks ago, The New York Times reported that a half-century after Richard Nixon declared war on cancer, there have been a great many breakthroughs that have saved and extended lives. The incumbent Republican president, however, is effectively waving the white flag in this war. From the article:
In a matter of months, the Trump administration has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer-related research grants and contracts, arguing that they were part of politically driven D.E.I. initiatives, and suspended or delayed payments for hundreds of millions more. It is trying to sharply reduce the percentage of expenses that the government will cover for federally funded cancer-research labs. It has terminated hundreds of government employees who helped lead the country’s cancer-research system and ensured that new discoveries reached clinicians, cancer patients and the American public.
In a companion piece, the article’s author, Jonathan Mahler, noted that the timing of the retreat is especially cruel — “America is in the midst of one of its most productive periods in cancer-research history,” he noted — and even if a more sensible administration takes office after Trump’s exit, it won’t be possible to reverse course quickly.
“The disruptions to existing projects and larger doubts about the government’s commitment to funding future cancer research are already causing damage that may be very difficult to undo, potentially depleting the country’s supply of scientists and scientific innovation for decades to come,” he concluded. Or as Dr. Kamila Naxerova, who was working at Harvard to try to understand how cancer spreads in the body before the Trump administration halted her progress, recently told the Times, “It’s people who will get cancer in 10, 20 or 30 years who will really pay the price for these cuts.” The White House wants to invest $50 million to explore possible uses of AI in pediatric cancer research? No problem. But if this subject is of interest to the president, perhaps he and his team could consider reversing course on their sweeping and more devastating cuts? This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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