Trump Is Shutting Down the War on Cancer
This sweeping investigative piece documents how the Trump administration has systematically dismantled America's cancer research infrastructure, cutting hundreds of millions in NIH and National Cancer Institute grants, freezing payments to research universities, laying off over 1,200 NIH employees, and proposing a 37% cut to the NCI's budget that would bring it to its lowest inflation-adjusted level in over 30 years. The article follows Rachael Sirianni, a pediatric brain cancer researcher at UMass Chan whose lab has been crippled by frozen funding and hiring restrictions, and Michael Collins, the school's chancellor, who faced a $93 million budget shortfall after federal grant payments dried up — forcing furloughs, spending freezes, and the rescission of graduate school offers to 87 incoming students. Researchers and former NIH officials describe the disruption as unprecedented and potentially catastrophic, warning it will take decades to recover and that the U.S. risks losing an entire generation of scientists to other countries, which are already recruiting American researchers. The piece situates the cuts within a broader ideological campaign — rooted in Project 2025, COVID-era skepticism of the scientific establishment, and tech-right disruption culture — that has replaced the NIH's two traditional political appointees with more than 20, effectively transforming an independent research agency into a politically controlled bureaucracy, with no coherent plan to replace what is being torn down.