Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump
This deeply personal article chronicles how the Trump administration's cuts to NIH funding and the dismantling of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium have devastated clinical trial access for children with DIPG, one of the most lethal and incurable childhood brain cancers. The piece follows several families, most notably Jenn Janosko — a pediatric oncology nurse who now watches her own four-year-old daughter Izzy face the same disease she spent years treating — whose hopes for enrolling Izzy in a promising clinical trial were dashed when the administration shut down the consortium that was weeks away from launching the expanded study. Scientists describe watching years of hard-won progress go into reverse: hiring freezes, canceled grants, shuttered labs, and researchers fleeing to the private sector or abroad, while doctors are now privately advised to avoid using the word "mRNA" in federal applications to avoid antagonizing health secretary RFK Jr. Another mother, Nikki Owens — a Trump voter — describes feeling betrayed after her nine-year-old daughter Kinlee was deemed eligible for two clinical trials, only to be told neither was accepting new patients due to funding cuts. The article ends on a rare note of hope: Janosko learned that Stanford had offered Izzy a spot on a Car T-cell trial, and her treatment began — a fragile but real reminder of what is at stake when political decisions collide with the lives of dying children.