To appease Elon Musk's demand to cut frivolous expenditure, for the sake of government efficiency, Republicans quietly removed a bill that would have funded pediatric cancer research through 2033, according to a report.
The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Program, named after a 10-year-old girl who died from an inoperable tumor in 2013, passed during the Obama administration in 2014. The $126 million bill was in response to $1.55 billion being cut from the National Institutes of Health's budget, according to Bulwark.
Since it was passed with bipartisan support, the bill funded cancer research for children and was dubbed "a turning point in pediatric cancer research," Rory Cooper stated at the time, an aide to then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
The bill's funding needed to be extended this year, and Mike Johnson's initial bill dedicated approximately $190 million to continue research through 2033. However, according to Bulwark, it was one of the many health programs cut when the bill was reduced from 1,500 pages to just 116 pages, which Musk later gloated about on his platform, X.
Nancy Goodman, founder and executive director of Kids v. Cancer spent four years working on the Give Kids a Chance Act, which also got cut but would have allowed FDA authorization of combination cancer treatments, shared her devastation with Bulwark.
"We spent a lot of time putting together policies with broad bipartisan support to help kids [who are] seriously ill," Goodman told Bulwark. "How can it be that our society is not thinking about the most vulnerable children and doing everything they can to help them? How can we cut this out in the name of efficiency? How does that make sense?"
Originally published by Latin Times
