On April 21, investigators with the Women’s Health Initiative were notified that HHS planned to terminate the WHI Regional Center contracts at the end of the current fiscal year (The Cancer Letter, April 20, 2025).
The American Association for Cancer Research called on Congress to stand up in unified opposition to President Trump’s FY2026 budget proposal for NIH, and to instead allocate a robust funding increase to $51.3 billion for the NIH (The Cancer Letter, May 2, 2025).
Julie Fleshman, president and CEO of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, sent a letter to Congress in response to the proposed NIH budget cuts.
A coalition of 20 attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration challenging the unlawful mass firing of roughly 10,000 full-time HHS employees, the consolidation of 28 HHS divisions into 15 divisions, and the closing of half of HHS’s ten regional offices. (The Cancer Letter, May 2, 2025).
Scott Gottlieb, Mark McClellan warn of the major challenges created by planned reorganization of FDA
Scott GottliebMark B. McClellanTwo former FDA commissioners—Scott Gottlieb and Mark B. McClellan—warned that the Trump administration’s proposal to restructure FDA by consolidating the different product centers that review drugs, biologics, animal health, tobacco, and medical devices into a single regulatory office would lead to major challenges.
Amid continued anticipation about tariffs on pharmaceuticals, President Trump has signed an executive order to prioritize the onshoring of prescription drug manufacturing as part of his “America First” agenda.
FDA announced a meeting of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee May 20 and 21. It will be the first ODAC meeting since President Trump was inaugurated.
President Trump nominated Casey Means as the U.S. surgeon general. Means, a wellness influencer, has “impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials,” Trump wrote in a post on X.
The Association of American Cancer Institutes sent a letter to NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya expressing concern about the proposed NIH policy change that would centralize all grant reviews to the Center for Scientific Review (The Cancer Letter, March 7, 2025).
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told NPR that HHS will reduce all contracts by 35%.
