The Trump administration’s broadsides against scientific research have caused unprecedented upheaval at the National Cancer Institute, the storied federal government research hub that has spearheaded advances against the disease for decades.
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NCI, which has long benefited from enthusiastic bipartisan support, now faces an exodus of clinicians, scientists, and other staffers, some fired, others leaving in exasperation.
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After years of accelerating progress that has reduced cancer deaths by a third since the 1990s, the institute has terminated funds nationwide for research to fight the disease, expand care, and train new oncologists. “We use the word ‘drone attack’ now regularly,” one worker said of grant terminations. “It just happens from above.”
The assault could well result in a perceptible slowing of progress in the fight against cancer.
Nearly 2 million Americans are diagnosed with malignancies every year. In 2023, cancer killed more than 613,000 people, making it the second leading cause of death after heart disease. But the cancer fight has also made enormous progress. Cancer mortality in the U.S. has fallen by 34% since 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. There are roughly 18 million cancer survivors in the country.
That trend “we can very, very closely tie to the enhanced investment in cancer science by the U.S. government,” said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and a globally recognized expert on prostate cancer.
This article is based on interviews with nearly two dozen current and former NCI employees, academic researchers, scientists, and patients. KFF Health News agreed not to name some government workers because they are not authorized to speak to the news media and fear retaliation.
“It’s horrible. It’s a crap show. It really, really is,” said an NCI laboratory chief who has worked at the institute for three decades. He’s lost six of the 30 people in his lab this year: four scientists, a secretary, and an administrator.
