WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today met with the American Association of Cancer Institutes’ (AACI) President, Dr. Robert Winn, to discuss the Trump Administration’s devastating cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
The Trump Administration has frozen or cancelled billions in NIH grant funding, fired thousands of NIH staffers, and proposed a Fiscal Year 2026 budget that requests a 40 percent cut to medical research at NIH, including a more-than 35 percent cut to cancer research specifically. These actions threaten our nation’s progress to find new cures and treatments for cancer patients and their families and discourage the next generation of researchers from entering the medical research field.
“What the Trump Administration is doing to medical research conducted at the NIH and NCI is abhorrent. Does anybody believe that America is greater as a nation with less cancer research? I don’t. Patients desperate for cures are in agony because of this Administration’s efforts to stop medical research in its tracks,” said Durbin.
“Today I heard directly from President Winn about how these cuts are impacting our nation’s cancer centers and their ability to provide life-saving care. I will do everything in my power to push back against this heartless Administration.”
