The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has cut federal cancer research funding by 31% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to a Senate report released Tuesday. The document accuses the White House of launching a “war on science.”
Commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders, a senior Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the report claims that more than $13.5 billion in health-related funding has been terminated since January. It also alleges that 1,660 research grants have been canceled and thousands of scientific staff laid off.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was among the worst-hit agencies, losing over $300 million in funding from January to March, pushing its inflation-adjusted grant levels to a 10-year low. Its parent body, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reportedly lost $2.7 billion in the same period.
“Since January, Trump has launched an unprecedented, illegal, and outrageous attack on science and scientists,” Sanders stated. “Trump is not only denying scientific truth but actively seeking to undermine it.”
Based on interviews with dozens of federal scientists and healthcare workers, the report describes growing dysfunction across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), now led by vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 175 public health datasets were reportedly deleted. One physician claimed this left doctors “without vetted guidance on how to treat patients.”
The human cost of these cuts is already being felt. A 43-year-old colorectal cancer patient told Senate staff her participation in a potentially life-saving T-cell therapy trial at the NIH was delayed due to staff shortages. “The reality is that by reducing money and staff, the NIH will not be able to produce my treatment — and it might cost me my life,” she said.
At the NIH Clinical Center, researchers described “complete chaos” following mass layoffs. “This administration has a lot of blood on their hands,” said one staff member. “We just want to take care of people.”
The report also flags growing public health risks, citing a measles outbreak that has infected more than 1,000 people and claimed three lives. Over 40 grants focused on vaccine hesitancy research have been terminated.
Controversially, Kennedy has appointed David Geier — a known vaccine conspiracy theorist previously disciplined for practicing medicine without a license and conducting unauthorized trials on autistic children — to lead a new investigation into a debunked link between vaccines and autism.
Despite the ongoing cuts, the Trump administration has proposed an additional 26% reduction to the HHS budget for 2026, while allocating $500 million to Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, which emphasizes nutrition, physical activity, and reducing pharmaceutical use.
