Tag Archives: cancer

The War On Medical Knowledge

This administration is waging a war on all sorts of research, scholarship and expertise.

MAGA Republicanism has long been an enemy of that hated “elitist” devotion to knowledge and empiricism (remember Scott Walker’s attacks on the University of Wisconsin and the “Wisconsin Idea”? He wanted to change the description of the University’s purpose from “basic to every purpose of the (University of Wisconsin) system is the search for truth” to “meet[ing] the state’s workforce needs.” )

If there remains any doubt about MAGA’s animus toward scholarship and the search for truth, one need only look at Trump’s all-out attacks on Universities and the judiciary. The universities’ commitment to empirical fact and the courts’ commitment to “fact-based” analysis are incompatible with the madman’s desire to impose his own prejudices on the American public.

Perhaps the clearest–and most horrifying– example of Trump’s assault on knowledge and expertise has been his enthusiastic facilitation of RFK Jr.’s assault on medical research, including but not limited to cancer research.

As The Washington Post recently reported,

A federal judge might have paused President Donald Trump’s attempt to slash about $4 billion for biomedical research funding through the National Institutes of Health, but the uncertainty created by the administration is already taking an immense toll on science.

Many schools and institutions have preemptively implemented cost-cutting measures in anticipation of losing funding down the line. This will, of course, curtail all sorts of crucial research happening now on disease treatments and preventions. But it will also have reverberations for years to come — potentially affecting an entire generation of future scientists.
 
The NIH has announced cancellation of its prestigious internship program–a program that gave more than 1,000 college students the opportunity to work at the agency each summer–and the National Science Foundation has downsized its research program for undergraduates. Countless doctors and medical scientists owe their careers to these programs.
 
 
Johns Hopkins University said Thursday it had begun laying off more than 2,000 workers across the globe after the institution lost $800 million in federal grants cut by the Trump administration.

As the administration has slashed funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), perhaps no institution of higher education has been hit harder than Johns Hopkins. Among the programs targeted were a $50 million project to treat HIV while experimenting with machine learning in India and a $200 million grant to treat one of the world’s most deadly diseases in thousands of children.
 
Several other media outlets have reported on Trump Administration’s cuts to cancer and Alzheimer’s research funding, including the termination of a $5 million grant to the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University. DOGE has listed that amount among DOGE’s “savings.” The vicious cuts to medical research have included pediatric cancer research funding.
 
 
The Trump administration’s effort to reshape the federal government through Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is raising fears among public health experts, researchers and advocacy groups of a massive brain drain and dire impacts to public health. 
 
Termination letters hit the inboxes of thousands of workers across health agencies in just the past week as the administration took a sledgehammer to the federal government.  

The employees worked on projects including studying infectious diseases, medical device safety, food safety, lowering health costs and improving maternal health outcomes. All of them are now out of a job.  

“The federal government has a huge footprint. [These layoffs] will interrupt all fields of research. Every phase of our scientific endeavor has been interrupted, including that research that is essential for our national security,” said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.  

MAGA’s Christian Nationalists evidently want to take us back to the days when “good Christians” like Cotton Mather understood diseases like smallpox to be evidence of God’s displeasure….

To believe the Trump/Musk assault is on “fraud and waste” would require us to re-define those terms. “Waste” in Musk jargon is defined as any program with which he disagrees. The fact that Congress chose to establish a program or pursue a goal is entirely beside the point, as is that pesky Constitutional provision vesting Congress–not DOGE– with exclusive authority over fiscal matters.

If there is one thing that distinguishes MAGA and its White Christian Nationalists from the rest of us, it is a seething resentment of those who differ, and especially those they consider “elitists”–defined not as people with money, (they  worship oligarchs, no matter how obviously ignorant) but people with knowledge and expertise. 

They’re thrilled with Trump’s destruction of our government, and they evidently don’t worry that they’ll get cancer…or measles.

 
 
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What The Jury Said

I have heard damning stories about Monsanto for years, so it didn’t surprise me when Trump’s EPA retreated from Obama-era findings that a chemical in one of the company’s herbicides, glyphosate, is a carcinogen. Glyphosate is a component of  Round-Up, which is widely used; numerous studies have linked that use to cancer, shortened pregnancies and other serious health outcomes.

The EPA may have backed off, but just last month, the Guardian reported a fairly stunning legal victory over the company.

Dewayne Johnson tries not to think about dying.

Doctors have said the 46-year-old cancer patient could have months to live, but he doesn’t like to dwell on death. These days, he has an easy distraction – navigating the international attention on his life.

The father of three and former school groundskeeper has been learning to live with the gift and burden of being in the spotlight in the month since a California jury ruled that Monsanto caused his terminal cancer. The historic verdict against the agrochemical corporation, which included an award of $289m, has ignited widespread health concerns about the world’s most popular weedkiller and prompted regulatory debates across the globe.

Johnson, who never imagined he would be known as “dying man” in dozens of news headlines, is still processing the historic win.

What is especially telling about the verdict is that Johnson–the first cancer victim to sue Monsanto and win– alleged that the company had spent decades intentionally covering up the cancer risks of its herbicide.

The groundbreaking verdict further stated that Monsanto “acted with malice” and knew or should have known that its chemicals were “dangerous”.

Monsanto, of course, has already filed a motion seeking to throw out the verdict– and prevent Johnson’s family from receiving the money. When a David like Johnson faces a Goliath like Monsanto, the eventual odds favor Goliath, and there are indications that the Judge is listening to Monsanto.

That said, deceiving the public about the risks of its products is hardly the only “rap” against Monsanto. I’ve read stories for years about the company’s vendetta against small farmers who save patented seeds they’ve purchased for use in ensuing years.

The agricultural giant Monsanto has sued hundreds of small farmers in the United States in recent years in attempts to protect its patent rights on genetically engineered seeds that it produces and sells, a new report said on Tuesday.

The study, produced jointly by the Center for Food Safety and the Save Our Seeds campaigning groups, has outlined what it says is a concerted effort by the multinational to dominate the seeds industry in the US and prevent farmers from replanting crops they have produced from Monsanto seeds.

In its report, called Seed Giants vs US Farmers, the CFS said it had tracked numerous law suits that Monsanto had brought against farmers and found some 142 patent infringement suits against 410 farmers and 56 small businesses in more than 27 states. In total the firm has won more than $23m from its targets, the report said.

There are also allegations that Monsanto will sue farmers whose fields contain more than one percent of crops grown from seeds that have “blown in” from adjacent fields. I was unable to verify the accuracy of that claim, although I once had a colleague whose father was a farmer, and my colleague claimed his father been targeted in just such a suit.

Fifty-three percent of the world’s commercial seed market is controlled by three firms – Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. That amount of power and market dominance undoubtedly has something to do with the EPA’s reversal, despite the conclusions reached by numerous scientists.

Of course, Trump’s EPA doesn’t believe any science. They probably put more stock in voodoo–and they’re probably sticking pins in a doll that looks like Dewayne Johnson now.

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