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Patmos Rhodes

Score Settling by Canceling Cancer Research (unabridged)

  • William Romanowski
  • Jan 8
  • 13 min read

January 2026

(13-minute read)

Keywords: Cancer, National Institute of Health (NIH), DEIA, Woke Culture, Cancer Moonshot, Medical Research


Cancer is about life, death, and hope. The Trump administration is pulling the rug out from under those of us living with this and other chronic, life-threatening diseases.*

 

A National Treasure

Since World War II, the United States National Institute of Health (NIH) budgets increased steadily, ushering in a biomedical research ecosystem renowned for its ongoing scientific innovations and advances. In 1971, President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, elevating the status of National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a research agency and granting it funding for study, prevention, and treatment in a nationwide effort against cancer.


National Institute of Health (NIH)
National Institute of Health (NIH)

 As the largest public funder of health-related research, the NIH has had a major impact on research and drug development, from early-stage discoveries to translational research, which is about turning scientific discoveries into practical interventions, such as diagnostics, therapies, and medical procedures. According to one report, “every significant medical breakthrough, especially in the treatment of cancer,” has been linked to enduring commitment and continuous federal investment in the NIH and the National Cancer Institute (a specific institution within the NIH).

 

The NIH is considered a national treasure, “the crown jewel of the federal government,” recognized worldwide for its incalculable contribution, not only to advancing medical science globally, but driving economic growth, eliminating human suffering, and saving untold lives through groundbreaking discoveries. And the NIH’s track record is phenomenal. Agency supported research has led to over one hundred Nobel Prizes; the NIH supported more than ninety-nine percent of FDA-approved drugs from 2010 to 2019..

 

The agency has also long benefited from broad bipartisan and public support. Research!America surveys in 2022 show that eighty-five percent of Americans think government officials should “assign a high priority to faster medical progress,” and are “willing to pay higher taxes if the funds were spent on medical and health research.” More than nine in ten think it’s important for America to be a global leader in science and technology.[1]

 

In one of the great accomplishments of the contemporary era, the United States became a global leader in cutting-edge scientific and medical research and innovation. The bedrock of this enterprise is an institutional partnership between the government and private sector, including universities, biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Why is this so important?

 

In a thorough analysis worth reading, Jonathan Mahler (New York Times Magazine), explains:

 

Cancer research seldom has a clear, monetizable endpoint – it is often work, in other words, that private industry would never support. The system’s extraordinary success is most clearly observed in retrospect, by looking at cancers that were fatal just a couple of decades ago and that doctors can effectively treat today. This progress is a validation of a slow but patient process that requires time – and the gradual accretion of shared knowledge – to prove its value.

 

Then something happened.

 

In Trump’s second term, “with shocking speed,” observed Stat, an American health-oriented news website, his administration “ripped up the longstanding social contract that existed between scientists and the federal government.” This came about as a shift in policy priorities that put the NIH in the White House’s crosshairs.

 

Chain-sawing the Federal Bureaucracy

Harsh NIH budget cuts have been linked to a broader budgetary strategy by the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers who seem to think there is no problem that cannot be solved by providing tax relief for the wealthiest American citizens and corporations. They were hellbent on extending the expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) passed during Trump’s first term.


Donald Trump announced the 2020 re-election campaign in Orlando, Florida, 18 June 2019
Donald Trump announced the 2020 re-election campaign in Orlando, Florida, 18 June 2019

But Trump campaigned in 2024 promising to reduce the federal deficit and the loss in revenue from roughly $3.75 trillion in tax cuts would blow up the national debt. That, in turn, would likely increase the risk of inflation, which Trump and Republicans promised to “defeat” and “quickly bring down all prices.” A ballooning deficit would lead to higher interest rates for consumers, making it harder for families to buy homes, finance car payments, or pay for college – among other difficulties. 

 

Republican proposals to offset the lost revenue included deep spending cuts to social programs like Medicaid and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and severe reductions to the federal bureaucracy. Remember Elon Musk, then head of DODE (Department of Government Efficiency), wielding a literal – if also metaphorical – chainsaw before a cheering crowd and shouting, “This is the chainsaw for [federal] bureaucracy! Chainsaw!”


Elon Musk speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
Elon Musk speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)

Turning Back the Clock

While becoming a global leader in medical research, the United States evolved into a much more racially diverse and multicultural democracy.[2] Trump’s determination to turn back the clock on civil rights advances in recent decades is no secret. His brazen attempt to dismantle “efforts to address systemic racism and promote a more equitable and just society” springs at least in part from an absolute individualism.

 

As I am using the concept, absolute individualism describes an extreme “rugged individualism” that emphasizes complete autonomy, freedom from societal constraints, prioritizing self-interest to the exclusion of others. Adherents refuse to acknowledge privilege (unearned social power) and disparities in life (advantages and disadvantages) that might be based on gender, race, class, or sexual identity, and that may well result from discriminatory policies and practices that exist at “structural, institutional, cultural, interpersonal and individual levels.”[3] It follows that those in denial of such inequality and injustice would also refuse “to redress them or eliminate the systems, policies, practices, cultural norms and other behaviors and assumptions that maintain them.”

 

The irony is hard to bear. Trump preaches meritocracy, but practices nepotism. And since childhood, he reportedly “received at least $413 million from his father over the decades, much of that through dubious tax dodges, including outright fraud.” That’s just how things are in this day and age, arguably no longer post-truth but anti-truth.


Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Martin Luther King Jr. during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

In his rhetoric – if not practice – Trump seeks to abolish the principle of promoting diversity over personal merit. The way he rationalizes his policies and directives is by inverting civil rights laws intended to protect underrepresented groups, claiming, without evidence, that it is white people that are chiefly oppressed by institutional discrimination.[4] In other words, identity-based programs centered on characteristics like race, gender, ethnicity, or orientation are not just wasteful, but also anti-white, meaning reversely discriminatory, and on that basis possibly violating federal anti-discrimination laws.

 

Trump moved swiftly, signing Executive Orders that were apparently prepared in advance to terminate DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility) programs throughout the federal government. Even the Smithsonian Institution was order to “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from its museums (Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”). There goes Archie Bunker’s upholstered wingback chair from All in the Family. And who knew Calibri was a DEIA font?


Bidding Biden's “Cancer Moonshot” Goodbye

After decades of steady growth, the NIH was ordered to make deep NIH budgetary cuts and staff reductions with Trump claiming (most ironically) that he was eliminating politically driven research and making scientific funding more efficient by getting rid of wasteful spending. Apparently, “wasteful spending” referred to NIH research with DEIA (diversity, equity, and inclusion, and accessibility) components.

 

By the summer of 2025, NIH funding lagged by over $2 billion, or 41 percent below average, which meant that “thousands of very competitive projects in areas like cancer, diabetes, aging, neurological disorders and public health improvements probably went unfunded in 2025.” The steep cuts disrupted millions of dollars in federal funding, and as an added bonus, they directly affected programs created under former President Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative.


Trump’s disdain for anything having to do with “woke culture,” which he called “bullshit,” is well known. (He has a lot of respect for the marketplace of ideas.) Political appointees vetted NIH research grants and proposals, putting on hold or canceling those having any DEIA references. They also removed select terminology, research papers, web pages, and datasets scientists depend on for public health research from federal health websites. And this censorship included prospective publications in academic journals.[5] 

 

The aim was to reduce federal spending while wresting control of federal science funding from the (previously) independent organization, bringing it in line with the White House’s regressive political agenda, purging government programs of “radical gender and racial ideologies that poison the minds of Americans,” as a White House statement entitled, “Cuts to Woke Programs,” put it.[6] 

 

Expressing disapproval, nonpartisan national health organizations issued a joint statement warning that the president’s order “puts the health and wellbeing of patients at risk and makes it more difficult for physicians to provide quality care.”

 

A Campaign of Retribution

Perhaps it is too obvious to say that Trump’s science policy is also related to his full-scale assault attacking law firms, entertainment companies, major news media and reporters, and late-night talk show hosts. A “campaign of retribution,” Reuters called it, that “turned a campaign pledge to punish political opponents into a guiding principle of governance.”

 

Perhaps nowhere were the twin drives – retribution and eradicating DEIA programs – clearer than in the White House’s threats to withhold billions of federal dollars – including grants for significant science and medical research – from elite universities, allegedly bastions of wokeness and antisemitism.[7] Restored funding was contingent upon meeting Trump’s demands, which included, among other things:

 

  • Ban consideration of race, sex, and nationality in admissions and hiring.

  • Cap foreign enrollment, disclose foreign funding, and screen international students for hostile intent.

  • Cultivate a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” while abolishing or modifying campus units that “punish” or “belittle” conservative thought.

  • Define “male” and “female” in biological terms and organize facilities and sports accordingly.[8]

 

The list of stipulations is not only riddled with contradictions, but a federal judge ruled that in issuing them, the administration “engaged in coercive and retaliatory conduct in violation of the First Amendment and Tenth Amendment.”

 

Counting the Cost

Like elections, government cuts have consequences. Trump’s cuts to the NIH and NSF (National Science Foundation) are expected to result in the loss of almost 70,000 jobs lost nationwide and cost the US economy between $10 billion and $16 billion annually for the foreseeable future.


And public health experts worried the administration was doing irreparable harm and that the United States risked ceding its global leadership in scientific and medical research. Regardless, the White House doubled down in its 2026 budget proposal, requesting a roughly 40 percent reduction in NIH funding, from $27.5 billion to $18 billion.


Of course, fewer grants means less research being conducting into new ways of preventing and treating cancer and other chronic, life-threatening diseases. The American Cancer Society released a statement calling on the president “to reverse course,” declaring that the “proposed cuts will lead to more suffering and death from cancer, reversing course on the downward trend in cancer death rates.”

 

Like so many of Trump’s directives – defying constitutional laws and norms, testing the boundaries of executive power – the administration’s slashing of federal research funding is making its way through the courts. Federal trial judges have blocked or put some of these funding cuts on hold (at least until the cases get on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket”).[9] And the White House’s budget is still awaiting congressional debate in 2026, a midterm election year.

 

However, popular support for government-funded medical research remains strong. Surveys show that 83 percent of Americans support “increased federal funding for cancer research,” and in large majorities by political affiliation: Democrats (93 percent), Republicans (75 percent), and independents (75 percent). 

 

Trump’s science policies are not just ignorant and shortsighted; they are cruel. Yet another chilling illustration of this administration’s depraved disregard for human life, what one writer labeled “the Trump administration’s celebration of death.” That comment was made in reference to the spectacle of lethal military strikes on Venezuelan fishing boats (allegedly drug couriers) – without due process. But the same could be said of the administration’s attacks on immigrant communities and other vulnerable groups, the affordability of healthcare, and his odious outburst about murdered film director Rob Reiner.

 

In 2025, nearly one in ten Americans reported a cancer diagnosis. And close to 40 percent of adults have a first-degree relative who has cancer. That means most Americans either have cancer themselves or know someone directly affected (thanks Google AI). We are waiting in hope for that next scientific breakthrough to come along that might prolong our lives, and maybe even rid us of cancer.

 

All things considered however, a former NIH deputy director NIH surmised, “Whatever comes next is never going to be what it used to be. The genie is out of the bottle.”

 

What a terrifying prospect on so many levels.


Additional Reading

 

Footnotes

*This blog post represents my vantage point, that is, my way of thinking about these matters, or what Fox News called “fair and balanced.” That said, the essay is research based; I’ve peppered the text with supportive citations and put some explanatory material and references in footnotes.


[1] See “Research America – Op-Ed: Increased NIH Investment Provides Returns for Every American,” Friends of Cancer Research, June 12, 2023, https://friendsofcancerresearch.org/news/research-america-op-ed-increased-nih-investment-provides-returns-for-every-american/.

[2] A multicultural democracy is a system where democratic principles meet cultural diversity, recognizing and accommodating various ethnic, racial, and religious groups by ensuring equal rights, promoting inclusivity, and evolving national identity to reflect all citizens, moving beyond mere tolerance to active inclusion and shared belonging (thanks, Google AI Overview).

[3] In contrast, a balanced individualism recognizes that personal liberty should not infringe on others, and values personal freedom along with social responsibility (thanks, Google AI). I might add that this approach to how we ought to live together is consistent with biblical teachings: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of other. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Phil. 2: 4-5).

[4] See “DEI and Affirmative Action Programs Blitzed, While Executive Order 11246 Is Revoked,” Epstein Becker Green, January 28, 2025, https://www.ebglaw.com/insights/publications/dei-and-affirmative-action-programs-blitzed-while-executive-order-11246-is-revoked; See Nikole Hannah-Jones, “How Trump Upended 60 Years of Civil Rights in Two Months,” New York Times, June 27, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/27/magazine/trump-civil-rights-law-discrimination.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share.

[5] See Julie Ehlers and Jen Smith, “Organizations Speak Out Against Trump’s Censorship of Data, Journal Publications,” Cancer Therapy Advisor, February 10, 2025, https://www.cancertherapyadvisor.com/features/trump-censorship-federal-websites-academic-journals/.

[6] Of course, those charged with administering Trump’s science policy might not see it this way. According to one report, “They see this moment as an opportunity to bring about long-sought reforms to the infrastructure underlying how federal dollars are doled out to universities and their scientists.” Megan Molteni, Anil Oza, and J. Emory Parker, “Trump has ‘shaken the hell’ out of the 80-year research pact between the government and universities. What now?” Stat, December 4, 2025, https://www.statnews.com/2025/12/04/american-science-shattered-series-analyzes-trump-research-funding-cuts/.https://www.statnews.com/2025/12/04/american-science-shattered-series-analyzes-trump-research-funding-cuts/.

[7] The term woke originated in Black communities, was popularized by the Black Lives Matter movement when it was amplified to include gender, LGBTQ+, and other social justice issues. Wokeness is the quality of being alert to and concerned about social injustice and discrimination (Oxford English Dictionary). Some Republicans however, have appropriated the term as a pejorative catchphrase for progressive ideas, policies, and perspectives. It is no small irony that woke is being used by Republicans to dismiss legitimate concerns about social injustice and systemic oppression while the Trump Administration is trying to institutionalize racism, homophobia, and nationalism.

[8] See Frederick M. Hess, “The Trump Administration’s Higher Education Compact: Eight Proposals for Delivering on Its Vision,” American Enterprise Institute, December 3, 2025, https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/the-trump-administrations-higher-education-compact-eight-proposals-for-delivering-on-its-vision/.

[9] Since January 20, 2025, the Supreme Court has issued 23 decisions on the shadow docket concerning administration actions,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

·         20 ruled for the administration at least partially

·         3 ruled against the administration

·         7 were not accompanied by any written explanation (most other rulings included only brief analysis, sometimes as short as a sentence)

“Supreme Court Shadow Docket Tracker – Challenges to Trump Administration Actions,” Brennan Center For Justice, October 21, 2025, updated December 1, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/supreme-court-shadow-docket-tracker-challenges-trump-administration. See also Alicia Bannon, "Supreme Court Must Explain Why It Keeps Ruling in Trump’s Favor,” Brennan Center For Justice, August 14, 2025, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-must-explain-why-it-keeps-ruling-trumps-favor.


Photo Credits (in order of appearance)

 

William D. Romanowski is an award-winning commentator on the intersection of religion and popular culture and author of a number of books, including Reforming Hollywood: How Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies and Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture. With his continuing commentary, he is trading footnotes for fiction, writing novels under the pen name (or nom de plume, as the French put it), Patmos Rhodes.


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