Sara Willa Ernst is a reporter with The Cancer Letter. She joined the publication in 2025.
Before joining The Cancer Letter, Sara reported on health in Texas both as a freelance journalist based in Austin and the health reporter at the NPR station in Houston, where she produced two investigative podcasts "Hot Stops" and "Below the Waterlines." The latter won her two regional Murrow awards in 2023.
Her bylines have appeared in publications such as NPR, The Texas Standard, WHYY's The Pulse, WBUR's Here and Now, Austin Free Press and the Austin Chronicle.
She graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in Communications Studies in 2018.
Latest Stories
Cancer Policy
Judge Brian E. Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, temporarily blocked a series of recent changes to the CDC vaccine schedule.
Cancer Policy
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a series of amendments to weaken regulations on emissions of ethylene oxide, a gas that is primarily used to sterilize medical devices and equipment.
Cancer Policy
The H–1Bs for Physicians and the Healthcare Workforce Act—introduced by Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-GA) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY)—would exempt physicians and health care workers from a recently imposed $100,000 fee now required to obtain an H-1B visa, which allows foreign nationals in “specialty occupations” to live and work in the U.S. The fee was previously $5,000 to $10,000.
Cancer Policy
Yet another U.S. Preventative Services Task Force meeting is postponed—the third missed meeting since the start of the second Trump administration.
News Analysis
If you listen to GRAIL executives discuss the results of the long-awaited trial of the company’s multicancer detection test, you might be led to conclude that the company’s pivotal NHS-Galleri study had an overwhelmingly positive result.
Conversation with The Cancer Letter
Undeterred by the negative topline result of its pivotal trial of Galleri, a multicancer detection test, the test’s sponsor, GRAIL, said it’s forging ahead with its plan to get FDA approval and reimbursement from CMS and private insurers.
Conversation with The Cancer Letter
Philip E. Castle, director of the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention, said he was disappointed to hear that GRAIL’s NHS-Galleri trial did not meet its primary endpoint of reduction in late-stage cancers.
Cancer Policy
Mount Sinai hospital has formed a committee to investigate the ties between Jeffrey Epstein and Eva Dubin a Swedish physician and philanthropist who founded the Dubin Breast Center at the Tisch Cancer Institute whose name is featured prominently in the Epstein files.
Cancer Policy
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) introduced the FIRE Cancer Act on Feb. 27. The piece of legislation seeks to increase grant dollars available to local fire departments, specifically earmarked for cancer prevention, “including providing multi-cancer early detection testing or other forms of preventative tests.”
Clinical Roundup
High-level results from the randomized, controlled NHS-Galleri trial, which is evaluating GRAIL’s multi-cancer screening test, Galleri, over three years in 142,000 participants aged 50 to 77, reveals that the trial did not meet its primary endpoint of shifting cancer diagnosis from advanced stages (3 and 4) to earlier stage (1 and 2).
The call to Fire Captain Brian Buchanan and his crew came at midnight. Northern California firefighters were urgently needed to help fight the wildfires that were devouring big swaths of Los Angeles.
Cancer Policy
Bayer, the owner of the herbicide Roundup, offered $7.25 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits alleging that the product is responsible for causing cases of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
NCI
The National Cancer Advisory Board’s ad hoc Working Group on Extramural Research Concepts and Programs on Feb. 6 voted to approve four new and three reissue concepts.
Cancer Policy
A Super Bowl LX commercial by Hims & Hers, a controversial direct-to-consumer medication platform, featured the company’s new offering: Galleri, a multi-cancer detection test produced by GRAIL Inc.
Cancer Policy
HHS is withdrawing the “340B Rebate Model Pilot Program” that was intended to go into effect on Jan. 1, according to a joint motion filed last week.
Cancer Policy
Pressed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged that he is not aware of any study pointing to a causal link between vaccines and autism.
Cancer Policy
TrumpRx, a direct-to-consumer drug purchasing platform, limited to self-pay patients, is live, as of Feb. 5.
Cancer Policy
NIH is suspending the addition of new human embryonic stem cell lines to the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry, all while looking for alternatives. The agency also issued a request for information on “emerging biotechnologies to reduce or potentially replace remaining research reliance on human embryonic stem cells.”
Cancer Policy
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is entering negotiations with drugmakers over the price of 15 medications this year. The newly announced list includes four drugs used to treat cancer.
Cancer Policy
Around 31,000 healthcare workers in California and Hawaii joined the picket line Jan. 26 as the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals and Kaiser Permanente reached an impasse in contract negotiations.
In the Archives
Over his five decades as a radiation oncologist, Bernie Lewinsky has been collecting the relics of radiotherapy.
Cancer Policy
NIH will no longer fund scientific research that uses human fetal tissue from elective abortions, a practice that has contributed to the study of cancer, the development of vaccines, and the treatment of other diseases.
Cancer Policy
According to a preliminary tally, 1.4 million fewer Americans have signed up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace this year, according to early data published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Health Equity
New Medicaid work requirements included in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” could result in as many as 1.6 million missed screenings for breast, colon, and lung cancers within the first two years, researchers at the University of Chicago reported in a paper published in JAMA Oncology earlier this month.
Cancer Policy
FDA, in collaboration with the European Medicines Agency, has published 10 principles to help guide pharmaceutical companies using artificial intelligence to develop drug, biological, and medical devices.
Clinical
A phase III clinical trial will soon begin testing the evidence collected thus far that points to a stunning prospect: the COVID-19 vaccine—a widely accessible mRNA vaccine already on the market—could make checkpoint inhibitors work better for lung cancer and melanoma patients.
Cancer Policy
Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology has retracted a literature review published in 2000 that concluded that glyphosate, a common herbicide used in agriculture and found in products such as Roundup, “does not pose a health risk to humans.”
Cancer Policy
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is awarding $50 billion to all 50 states as part of the Rural Health Transformation Program—funding established through the One Big Beautiful Bill passed in July.
Cancer Policy
A federal judge has blocked the Health Resources and Services Administration from rolling out a pilot program that would reimburse safety net hospitals that get a discount on drugs through the 340B program via a rebate, as opposed to the status quo of up-front savings. The preliminary injunction was issued on Dec. 29, just a few days before the program was slated to begin on Jan 1.
Cancer Policy
In a joint letter, 148 members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are urging the Department of Education topreserve nursing as a “professional” degree—a categorization that gives students greater access to federal loans.
Regulatory News
The European Society For Medical Oncology has formally weighed in on a question that U.S. medical groups have been chipping away at as well: How can we guarantee safe and effective use of artificial intelligence in oncology?
Cancer Policy
Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner, said a recent decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ to change its recommendation for when children should receive the hepatitis B vaccine is another sign of the ACIP’s diminished credibility as a scientific authority.
Cancer Policy
HHS has issued its AI strategy—“the first step” in making a “whole-of-department transformation” towards the use of artificial intelligence in public health, health care delivery, biomedical research, human services, and agency operations.
Cancer Policy
Medicare will soon launch a pilot program that will test the use of AI to automate the prior authorization process—a tool that will recommend whether to approve or deny coverage for a patient in the program.
Cancer Policy
Pediatric cancer patients are living longer than ever before, according to the AACR Inaugural Pediatric Cancer Progress Report, published on Dec. 4. The five-year survival rate for all pediatric cancers has increased from 63% in the mid-1970s to 87% in 2015-2021.
Cancer Policy
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it has negotiated down the price of 15 drugs, including significant discounts to four costly cancer treatment drugs, according to an announcement from Nov. 25.
Cancer Policy
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced that monthly premiums for Medicare Part B will begin costing patients $202.09 per month next year—a 9.7% rise up from $185 in 2025—for individuals making an annual income of $109,000 or less.
Cancer Policy
The American Hospital Association, joined by four community-based hospitals, has sued HHS over a pilot program to reimburse drug costs to safety net hospitals enrolled in the 340B program through a rebate—a departure of the status quo of up-front discounts.
Free
The nagging pain in Mia Sandino’s right knee set in in September 2018, and throughout her freshman year at the University of Washington, she tried to ignore it. “I was being a very naive and invincible-feeling 19-year-old,” Sandino told The Cancer Letter. “I didn’t put two and two together that this area of the knee that...
Cancer Policy
CMS announced a new drug payment model called the GENErating cost Reductions for U.S. Medicaid (GENEROUS) Model that the agency plans to pilot next year.
Cancer Policy
The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend the routine use of leucovorin (folinic acid) for autistic children, according to the interim guidance issued by the physician group Oct. 31.
The Friends of Cancer Research annual meeting, to be held Nov. 4 in Washington, DC, will focus on three questions facing the field of oncology clinical trial design.
Cancer Policy
NCI officials were notably absent from the annual meeting of the Association of American Cancer Institutes and the Cancer Center Administrators Forum in Washington, DC, due to the government shutdown that started on Oct. 1.
Cancer Policy
Scientists, health care professionals, and supporters will take to the streets on Nov. 5, calling for Congress to remove Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from his position as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Cancer Policy
A court filing by Thomas Nagy Jr., deputy assistant secretary for Human Resources and chief human capital officer at HHS, claims that his department can proceed with the 982 RIFs it issued two weeks ago, despite a judge’s temporary order freezing the notices issued by two dozen federal agencies since the government shutdown that began on Oct 1.
Cancer Policy
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Oct. 15, ordering the Trump administration to reverse the wave of layoffs that the administration is using as a pressure tactic intended to force the Democrats to accept cuts to popular health programs and reopen the government.
Cancer Policy
NIH has published a policy that prohibits U.S. researchers and NIH grant recipients working with human biospecimens to share this data with “countries of concern.” That list includes China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.
Cancer Policy
Governor Gavin Newsom Oct. 6 signed into law SB 351—a piece of legislation that prohibits hedge fund and private equity groups from interfering with the medical decisionmaking of physicians and their patients.
Chris Biggar, a 34-year-old from Ohio, had just landed his dream job working in R&D when he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
NCI
NCI has released the names of the members of the newly formed ad hoc Working Group on Extramural Research Concepts and Programs. The group will perform the peer review functions of the now-defunct Board of Scientific Advisors.
As NCI and NIH funding is being deliberated in Congress, this year’s 2025 AACR Cancer Progress Report had an unequivocal message: With 20 new anticancer therapeutics, new uses for eight previously approved anticancer therapeutics, two new early detection tools, and several AI-powered diagnostics approved over the span of just one year, cancer research funding yields a good return on investment.
The National Cancer Advisory Board approved five reissue concepts at a meeting Sept. 4.
Cancer Policy
To fight drug shortages that have dogged all of medicine—including oncology—for decades, the Trump administration is returning to a policy it first enacted during the president’s first term.
Cancer Policy
A federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration’s move to cut research funding to Harvard University was illegal—restoring more than $2 billion and all future grants to the institution.
Cancer Policy
FDA is shortening its timeline for publicizing Complete Response Letters, pledging to make them available to the public “promptly” after sponsors receive notice.
Podcast
Phil and Penny Knight made a record-setting $2 billion gift to OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
Free
Earlier this year, amid efforts by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce, Lakshmi Grama decided to take early retirement from NCI.
Those anxiously anticipating the release of the U.S. News & World Report‘s evaluation of cancer hospitals will find one intriguing change.
Conversation with The Cancer Letter
The first large cancer screening/early detection initiative to be launched in 2025—the NCI-funded Vanguard study of multi-cancer detection tests—has started accruing patients through nine sites across the U.S.
Conversation with The Cancer Letter
On July 4, President Donald Trump signed into law “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which is expected to deal a massive blow to Medicaid coverage and leave millions without insurance by instituting a work requirement for beneficiaries.
Regulatory News
The FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee July 17 recommended against approval of a Blenrep-based regimen for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, citing unacceptable rates of ocular toxicity and overall poor tolerability of the drug.
Cancer Policy
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is searching for examples of employees, grant recipients, and contractors harmed by DEI efforts of the federal government in the last five years, as part of the Trump administration’s mission to end initiatives set up to diversify the workforce and bolster opportunities forhistorically disadvantaged groups.
