National Institutes of Health

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on another matter, there are few more devastating words to hear than: ``You have cancer.''

The unfortunate truth is that millions around the world are faced with that reality every year. The statistics are devastating. Cancer kills 10 million people each year and is a leading cause of death globally.

The good news? Medical research has led to breakthrough advancements that are helping in the fight against cancer, with new treatments and cures being developed each year.

If some of the most painful words someone can hear are: ``You have cancer,'' then some of the most hopeful words are: ``You have promising treatment options.''

Thanks to research from the National Institutes of Health and other global medical research organizations, the scientific community is making ground-breaking advances in cancer treatment.

For example, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used NIH funding to develop a new system to predict a person's likelihood of developing lung cancer up to 6 years in advance, using a low-dose CT scan.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine used NIH funding to develop a test that identifies 95 percent of early pancreatic cancers, one of the deadliest cancers because it is rarely caught early.

Medical research worldwide has also led to the development of personalized cancer vaccines, discoveries about the genetic causes of cancer, and the creation of drugs to cut breast cancer risk and treat cervical cancer.

This lifesaving research is creating hope for millions across the world at a time when the estimated number of new cancer cases and deaths is only predicted to rise.

But the Trump administration is directly threatening the very research that provides the foundation for new discoveries, treatments, and cures.

Since the President took office and ceded power to his unelected billionaire buddy Elon Musk, they have attempted sweeping cuts and illegal caps on medical research funding.

Already, because of these efforts, NIH has been forced to hold back more than $1 billion in Federal grant funding for researchers. Imagine that. The President cutting funding to help find cures for cancer.

As if that weren't bad enough, Elon Musk and RFK, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, have taken their chainsaws to the medical research workforce, cutting more than 1,000 jobs from NIH and threatening thousands more.

Just yesterday, NIH employees reported to work, not knowing if they still had jobs or not. How does dismantling our Nation's premier medical research agency make our Nation better? Or healthier?

When you freeze NIH's work, limit its resources, fire its experts, or cut its budget, you are hamstringing the world's leading medical research agency from doing what it does best: saving lives.

We are at a very dangerous precipice. If this attack on medical research is allowed to continue, we will lose an entire generation of researchers, medical breakthroughs will be delayed, and the words ``you have cancer'' will be heard by far more people who will have far less hope in a treatment or cure.

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