During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) slammed the Trump Administration’s funding cuts to biomedical research.
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00:00Thank you. Senator Ossoff.
00:06Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for convening this hearing today.
00:12It is a tragedy that we have to hold it.
00:17And evidence of the catastrophic incompetence of the Trump administration
00:24that the U.S. Senate is reduced to holding hearings to affirm that, yes,
00:29clinical research into childhood cancer is worth investment.
00:35A young woman came into my office, Ms. Stenson, just a few weeks ago
00:40and explained to me that she had stage four colorectal cancer.
00:46Three children.
00:49And the clinical trial in which she'd been enrolled was paused.
00:54So those three little kids may now lose their mother.
01:00For what?
01:01Why?
01:03What's the constituency for this?
01:06Who out there in the American public is sitting at home demanding that we shut down cancer research
01:11and Alzheimer's research?
01:13We're going to pay for this not just in lives and children's lives right now,
01:19but we're going to pay for this for a century.
01:21Irreversible damage has already been done, and it's an outrage.
01:27And I hope that this hearing demonstrates that there's bipartisan rejection of these policies here
01:32in the United States Senate, and I hope that we'll follow up this hearing with real action.
01:37And Ms. Stenson, I've got a three-and-a-half-year-old little girl at home,
01:41and thank God that your little girl is alive.
01:48Every parent can understand.
01:50When you hold your precious, innocent, kind child,
01:55and you fear the most intense fear that something could happen to them,
01:59to think that American parents with children who have cancer
02:04now don't know whether they can enroll that child in a trial
02:09because maybe there's a way to save that life,
02:12it's devastating.
02:16So thank you for being here and bringing your sweet little girl.
02:18Thank you for sharing your testimony with us.
02:21I have here a statement for the record from Emory University in Georgia.
02:25It includes the following statements.
02:30Quote,
02:30This research has contributed to significant advancements in treating diseases like cancer,
02:34Alzheimer's, infectious diseases, and cardiovascular conditions.
02:38Federal support for biomedical research is essential.
02:41Cuts or stagnation in research funding jeopardize these efforts
02:44and could have far-reaching consequences for both patients and communities,
02:48even a short interruption of research funding could set back scientific progress for decades.
02:53We urge Congress to continue prioritizing bipartisan investment in biomedical research.
02:57And Madam Chair, I'd like to ask consent to enter that into the record.
03:00Without a judge.
03:02Mrs. Stenson,
03:04my understanding
03:05is that Charlie's participation in clinical trials saved your daughter's life.
03:11Is that right?
03:12Yes.
03:15And because of what you've experienced and what you've been through in your advocacy,
03:21I would imagine that you've come into contact with other families similarly situated
03:25whose children are only alive thanks to clinical trials.
03:29Yes.
03:32I'd like to ask
03:33at the end of the day, sir, forgive me,
03:37the multi-decade
03:42potential impact
03:44of this war
03:46on medical research.
03:48Talk about the long run, please, sir.
03:50I can tell you that
03:51in the next few months,
03:53we're going to determine,
03:54we're sitting at a crossroads.
03:56We are at this moment of extreme opportunity.
03:59And you've heard it from all the scientists at this table
04:01about what's already been accomplished
04:03and what could be accomplished.
04:05Or there's another path.
04:07And that path is this path of the leaked passback budget.
04:11That budget,
04:12I hope it's wrong,
04:13but it says a 44% cut to NIH funding.
04:17And we can talk about administrative costs
04:19and talk about everything else.
04:20That level of funding means that we aren't in a race anymore.
04:23It means we aren't in a race anymore.
04:25And what that means is
04:25there may be
04:28cures for disease.
04:29There may be
04:29investment made in China and elsewhere
04:32that leads to some things happening
04:35that we would want.
04:35We're not going to be able to set the standards.
04:37We're not going to understand access.
04:40We're not going to have
04:40the ability to even catch up
04:43because the benefits will accrue
04:45to some other place.
04:47But what it really means for patients
04:48is that we can't drive the priorities.
04:51We can't say pediatric cancer.
04:53We can't say Alzheimer's.
04:54We can't say Parkinson's.
04:56We will have lost that race.
04:58And these early career scientists
05:00that are really in moments of panic right now,
05:04they are going to be determinative
05:06of whether or not we have a generation of scientists
05:08to replace the ones that we have today.
05:10This is not just a five-year problem.
05:12It's a 10-year, 20-year, 30-year problem
05:14that just becomes not a virtuous cycle,
05:17but the opposite.
05:18It becomes a cycle on the way to a downward slope
05:20that we can't pull out of.
05:22In Germany, 100 years ago,
05:23if you wanted to do chemistry,
05:25you spoke German.
05:26And in the U.S., you spoke German.
05:28You had to learn German.
05:3020 years from now,
05:31what is going to be the language of science?
05:33Is it going to be English?
05:34I don't know that for certain at this moment.
05:36We're at a crossroads to figure that out.
05:38It's a historical moment.
05:40Well put, and it's urgent.
05:42Thank you all.
05:42Thank you, Madam Chair.