First, law enforcement: DJ’s introduction came after a call for a new crime bill, which Trump said would get “tough on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed.” Meaning, the qualified immunity that cops already so thoroughly enjoy isn’t enough. The connection here is that DJ has long wanted to be a law enforcement officer; Trump had his Secret Service director grant him honorary status in the Service, to enormous cheers from the audience.
Next, to cancer research itself: “Since 1975, rates of child cancer have increased by more than 40 percent,” Trump said. “Reversing this trend is one of the top priorities.” Okay, sure — only he went on that it’s a top priority “for our new presidential commission to Make America Healthy Again chaired by our new secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” What Kennedy Jr. doesn’t know or understand about cancer prevention and treatment could fill the entire National Cancer Institute, and while he’s out front ranting about cod liver oil to treat measles and such the Trump administration is undercutting the NCI and the National Institutes of Health in dramatic fashion.
The NIH intranet was updated on Monday with new guidance, freezing travel and purchasing (with some exceptions) for another 30 days, per images of the guidance shared with Splinter. As the meetings that determine who gets the billions in biomedical research funding from NIH remain largely frozen, a source at an institution that receives NIH funding said that they shouldn’t even count on money coming in later this year from an already-awarded grant that has paid out previous years. And Trump didn’t mention that childhood cancer mortality rates have dropped by more than 50 percent since 1975 — thanks in large part to work done at and funded by NIH and NCI.
Finally, the environment and the EPA: “DJ’s doctors believe his cancer likely came from a chemical he was exposed to when he was younger,” Trump said. “Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong.” A non-expert ranting about “toxins” is among the foremost ways to know you’re hearing from a crank. In this case, the agency that actually works to keep bad stuff out of the air and water, the EPA, is facing a massive reduction in budget and workforce, meaning the sort of enforcement that might protect children from cancer-causing chemicals will suffer. (As for the “food supply” part, well, they’re cutting that too.)
Last week, a Cornell PhD candidate named Hannah Frank helped organize a “Stand Up For Science” rally on campus. At the event, she gave a speech about her mother, who died recently of a form of brain cancer. “She was treated at UPenn, which is rescinding graduate admissions offers and cutting incoming grad students by about a third, including med school,” she told Splinter on Wednesday. “The use of a childhood brain cancer survivor last night while they decimate the research was a slap in the face.”
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