With a growing backlog at NIH and Columbia University’s grants getting canceled over alleged antisemitism, where does that leave NCI-designated cancer centers?
Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Claire Marie Porter, reporter, discuss this and more on the latest episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast.
This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Stories mentioned in this podcast include:
- The Directors: Ray DuBois and Roy Jensen on how COE guides cancer care in rural America
- Backlog of work grows at NIH as staff members are being hounded to quit
- Kimryn Rathmell: My mentor recognized a cliff I was going to fall off before I did
- Guest editorial by Shine Chang, Michaela A. Dinan, and Miria Kano: In support of three coordinated CCSG components reducing our national burden of cancer
- Guest editorial by William Pao: New drugs don’t appear out of thin air
This episode was transcribed using AI transcription services. It has been reviewed by our editorial staff, but the transcript may be imperfect.
The following is a transcript of this week’s In the Headlines, a weekly series on The Cancer Letter podcast:
Jacquelyn Cobb (00:00): This week on the Cancer Letter Podcast..
Paul Goldberg (00:04): So, is the administration going to go after every place that has a complaint against it and try to shut them down? Shut down the cancer centers, shut down other things. I mean, we’re not just talking about cancer centers, we’re talking about engineering research and whatever—a bunch of stuff, agriculture, you name it.
But you could, in one fell swoop, lose a lot of cancer centers if this continues in this way.
Now, if Columbia is able to negotiate its way out, that would tell us that the administration wants some sort of corrective action, or mea culpa, or what have you. But if Columbia is unable to negotiate its way out, then we know that, at least in some cases, the administration is out to shut down the academic institutions in the United States.
I certainly hope it’s the former, not the latter.
You are listening to the Cancer Letter podcast. The Cancer Letter is a weekly independent magazine covering oncology since 1973. I’m your host, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of the Cancer Letter,
Jacquelyn Cobb (01:33): And I’m your host, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter. We’ll be bringing you the latest stories, groundbreaking research and critical conversations shaping oncology.
Paul Goldberg (01:43): So let’s get going.
Claire Marie Porter (01:53): Welcome back to another episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast. I am Claire Marie Porter. I’m a reporter at The Cancer Letter. Jacquelyn is vacationing in Washington State this week.
Hi, Jacquelyn. I hope you’re having fun.
Paul Goldberg (02:09): If she’s having fun, she’s not listening.
Claire Marie Porter (02:11): That’s true. Good point. Good point. Well shout out to Jacquelyn.
Paul Goldberg (02:14): Jacquelyn. So nevermind.
Claire Marie Porter (02:15): Yeah, nevermind. Jacquelyn, we miss you. Hi, Paul. How are you? How are you today?
Paul Goldberg (02:20): I’m fine.
Claire Marie Porter (02:21): Yeah.
Paul Goldberg (02:21): Yeah, this is a great time to be a journalist.
Claire Marie Porter (02:24): Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
So before we dive into the stories, I’m just going to give a little overview of what was in our headlines this past week.
So at the top, we featured our monthly podcast, The Directors, for our cover. So, this was an interview facilitated by Paul Goldberg with two cancer center directors in rural states, Raymond DuBois—he’s the director of the Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston, South Carolina—and Roy Jensen of the University of Kansas Cancer Center. They discussed the importance of COE in rural America, indirect costs, health disparities, among other things. We also featured our good friend Otis Brawley as a discussant on that podcast.
We had a roundup of what’s going on in politics, and the White House—kind of covered the pile up of work growing at NIH due to reductions in federal workforce bans on meetings, funding freezes, et cetera.
We covered the centralization of review, the new list of problematic words to be avoided by government officials in order to avoid being flagged. We covered the withdrawal of Weldon CDC nomination and a pediatric cancer bill, which was reintroduced before the Senate Give Kids a Chance Act, which had previously been cut at the end of last year. And the economic impact of research funding from NIH.
We had our weekly column by Kim Rathmell on the role that mentorship plays in women’s leadership development.
We had a guest editorial on CCSG components reducing the National Burden of Cancer, which was written by leaders in health disparities research and cancer prevention at MD Anderson, Yale Cancer Center. and University of Colorado Cancer Center.
We had a guest ed by William Paol introducing his new book on drug development.
So it’s been quite a week and once again, a great time to be a journalist. Yeah, here we are again.
Paul Goldberg (04:26): We keep saying this, someday somebody will throw stuff at us. So it’s actually very good that we are out of reach of our readers who probably are throwing stuff at their screens. Like every time anybody says, it’s a great time to be a journalist because this is not really a very good time.
Claire Marie Porter (04:44): “Good” is maybe the wrong word, but… I started grad school and journalism—my first time being a journalist was during the first Trump administration—and when we said it was a good time to start being a journalist, it just meant there was so much to report on. There’s always a second, third day story. So I think that’s what I mean when I say it’s a good time to be a journalist, is that there’s no digging for stories that kind of fall into your lap week by week.
Paul Goldberg (05:07): I didn’t go to J School, but that’s exactly what I mean as well.
What really seems to be happening is as they “flood the zone,” which is really their term for what they’re doing, all you can do is just cover what’s actually happening. But the day two stories, the ones where you really chew on it and try to understand what actually happens and how it’s going to affect your readers and listeners, those stories have to wait. And we’ve got a very long waiting list of that kind of stories now for us. But we are still not getting fired or deported or anything of the sort.
Claire Marie Porter (05:54): So what were some of your favorite moments or key highlights from this week’s issue?
Paul Goldberg (05:59): Yeah, apropos to what I was saying, We have this feature—standing feature—that we internally call the “roundup.” It means nothing to anybody. That just means a lot of that day one stuff gets put in the same bag because people really want to see all of it in one place. We did the same thing with COVID. So, when you can’t just have, you just need to put it all in one place and people do read it. We look at numbers and the numbers seem to suggest that that is the most read piece.
Now, this week was strange because there was a theme to the roundup, which was how it’s difficult to be a government employee these days, these days, especially for NCI and NIH. And these folks are being besieged with offers to retire early, offered packages, and asked to send every, excuse me, every week to send a list of five things that they did this week.
But the result of it is that you really have no idea how many people are taking these offers. How many people just want to just leave, and who is going to be staying behind? Will there be people who are staying behind who are able to process grants and even hit the pay button? Which by the way, is not that straightforward. It’s not just push a button. You can’t train a smart 12-year-old to do it. It’s a whole to do.
So, basically, oh, there’s also, of course, a pile up of applications, meetings not being held, peer review, not being conducted, access to federal register, which is a requirement for the government to do really much of anything. So, all of this is not happening. So, some say that it seems unlikely that the government will be able to issue all the grants or review all of the grants. It’s supposed to be reviewing or issuing this year. So, what happens if money is not spent? Does it go away permanently? I don’t know.
And I don’t think anybody will be able to answer that question, but some of it is really difficult. For example, what are the five things you did this week? Well, why don’t we just try it out. Claire, what are the five things you did this week?
And actually showing me the middle finger right now since we’re in video, is perfectly legitimate because that’s what I would do if somebody asked me.
Claire Marie Porter (09:13): It’s insulting. Yeah.
Paul Goldberg (09:14): Yeah.
Claire Marie Porter: You want me to answer?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Yeah. This was a real question.
Claire Marie Porter (09:19): You were there for all of it!
Paul Goldberg (09:21): I know I was, but still, what are the five things you did this week? Fast answer.
Claire Marie Porter (09:27): I Conducted interviews. I sent a lot of emails. I worked on transcripts. I wrote a lot of words. I did some reporting.
Paul Goldberg (09:37): Is it five things?
Claire Marie Porter (09:38): I think so. It felt like five things.
Paul Goldberg (09:40): I dunno. We’ll find out after we do this, whether it’s five things, because six things is probably okay. Right?
Claire Marie Porter (09:48): Probably. Okay. Yeah. I mean, in all the different components of journalism, I mean, just saying journalism itself is at least five things, right?
Paul Goldberg (09:54): Oh, at least. At least. And as we said, it’s a great time to be a journalist.
So, yeah. I think actually one story that is really interesting going into next week is what happens with Columbia, which is by the way, your alma mater.
The most interesting thing with Columbia to me is that among the, what is it, $400 million worth of federal grants, contracts, et cetera, that Columbia supposedly lost—or lost—is apparently the CCSG. Columbia hasn’t been really saying very much.
I see discretely tucked onto the front page of The New York Times that they’re negotiating, trying to figure out how to keep the grants, what kind of a corrective action plan to put in place. But the main issue is antisemitism… or making Jewish students feel uncomfortable as they walk through campus, which may have been the real thing, but it has nothing to do with cancer.
And the fact that Columbia Cancer Center is very, very important.
Claire Marie Porter (11:16): I mean, just kind of for the lay person or those new to cancer like myself. Can you explain what CCSGs are and why they might be in peril?
Paul Goldberg (11:26): Well, there’s another 60 institutions, by the way, that are on the list that the Trump administration is using,
Claire Marie Porter (11:35): Not just Ivy Leagues.
Paul Goldberg (11:36): Oh, no, no, no. Not just the Ivy Leagues. A bunch of ’em that really, every place you can think of, each of them has a cancer center, is the administration… Or not each of them, some of them have cancer centers.
So, is the administration going to go after every place that has a complaint against it and try to shut them down? Shut down the cancer centers, shut down other things. I mean, we’re not just talking about cancer centers, we’re talking about engineering research and whatever—a bunch of stuff, agriculture, you name it.
But you could, in one fell swoop, lose a lot of cancer centers if this continues in this way.
Now, if Columbia is able to negotiate its way out, that would tell us that the administration wants some sort of corrective action, or mea culpa, or what have you. But if Columbia is unable to negotiate its way out, then we know that, at least in some cases, the administration is out to shut down the academic institutions in the United States.
I certainly hope it’s the former, not the latter.
Claire Marie Porter: Me too.
Paul Goldberg: And in fact, I think maybe what we should do with Columbia is maybe get you to look into it because who is what’s happening? And maybe you should look into that story. What do you think?
Claire Marie Porter (13:24): I think you just assigned me a story live.
Paul Goldberg (13:26): Yeah. This is the first time this has happened in the history of the cancer letter that the story was assigned live.
Claire Marie Porter (13:34): Well, considering the podcast is new, that’s not saying a whole lot, but—
Paul Goldberg (13:37): No, it’s not. But you can say that there’s something extraordinary about the pretty ordinary event, and it’s always fun. People like it.
Claire Marie Porter (13:49): We should talk about The Directors.
Paul Goldberg: We should.
Claire Marie Porter: We should. That was fun to listen to. It’s a great podcast.
Paul Goldberg (13:58): It’s always fun. But yeah, this one was a blast.
The reason for The Directors is—the reason we created it is to highlight the fact that the cancer centers are run by some very cool people who have some very wise things to say. And this is especially important now as NCI is losing some of its leadership role and the role of a cancer center director. And there’s a whole lot of roles that cancer center directors play. One of them is to be a public intellectual.
And so, we invite two directors at a time, and I sort of moderate, but these are usually people who do not require the services of a moderator. And then there is a kind of conversation with a discussant and all of it is really a blast.
Claire Marie Porter (15:06): And what did these two directors, they all have something in common, and these two are from rural areas?
Paul Goldberg (15:13): Well, what we were talking about was actually kind of what we talked about in the previous episode with John Carpten and Rob Winn, which is the importance of community outreach and engagement as a way of guiding the cancer centers and assessing the impact of cancer centers.
This has been a big part of what NCI has demanded in the CCSG applications and renewals. And it basically tells you, are you reaching people who are in your catchment area? Are you reaching them and are you improving their health? If you lose that for whatever reason, and I’m one of the people who worry about losing that, then why? Because, because COE is a three letter acronym and DEI is also a three letter acronym.
I’m worried that some of these folks who put together the glossaries of words to watch out for are going to get them confused. These are two very different things. Even DEI really, which is many things.
Claire Marie Porter (16:31): Right?
Paul Goldberg (16:31): Right. You can argue with some of them, but some of it is a, makes all kinds of sense because there are people who are disadvantaged who need to be, well, actually, both of these things are important to health services research. If health services research and Well, there will be two things happening. One of them is people will be dying more or doing worse, rather. And the second thing is, we won’t know about it.
Claire Marie Porter (17:13): Right. Right.
Paul Goldberg (17:15): So is that a good thing or a bad thing? You’re trying to get more people to die. You probably shouldn’t necessarily keep track. Or maybe you should. I don’t know. Kind of. It’s a little too grotesque for me.
Claire Marie Porter (17:32): Yeah. Well, Otis Brawley talked a good bit about the misinformation around DEI and that’s not helping. The situation gave his own—
Paul Goldberg: —and COE.
Claire Marie Porter: And COE.
Paul Goldberg (17:42): Yeah. And he made the distinctions and the similarities, and it was very nice to bring it kind of down to the fundamentals, which is one of Dr. Brawley specialties, bringing things down to the fundamentals. So even people like us journalists can understand.
Claire Marie Porter (18:00): Right, right. Yeah. He says education is an amazing equalizer in terms of cancer death, which is something I’ve heard him say before, but it’s very poignant..
Paul Goldberg (18:12): Yeah. Otis speaks for himself, and the best thing to do is just to listen to the whole thing. It’s a blast.
Claire Marie Porter (18:19): Yeah. So what’s coming down the pipeline this week?
Paul Goldberg (18:25): This is going to be a big week. Jay Bhattacharya is probably going to step into his job as the NIH director.
Claire Marie Porter (18:36): Is that confirmation hearing this week?
Paul Goldberg (18:39): The confirmation hearing happened last week. This week is—he goes before the full Senate.
Claire Marie Porter (18:44): Right.
Paul Goldberg (18:45): Yeah. So then not last week even. It happened the week before last. So, Bhattacharya, actually, in his confirmation hearing sounded like—he didn’t sound like Elon Musk. There was no chainsaw involved.
Claire Marie Porter (19:06): Right.
Paul Goldberg (19:06): He seemed to say that also that he would like to take a closer look at the issues like indirect costs, which is very important to look at in a measured way. And he said that there would probably be no more staff cuts at NIH.
But it’s one thing to say things at your Senate confirmation hearing before the committee. It’s another thing entirely to do what you have to do to run an age. But by the way, these are actually, this is an important distinction because it’s one thing to reform with the government to make changes. It’s another thing to actually run an agency. So, DOGE and Musk have one function, and Bhattacharya has another function entirely. So it’s expected that pretty soon after, but is named, we would see the NCI director, whoever that may be.
Paul Goldberg (20:27): That also is very important. Who is going to run NCI? One of the things that we’re seeing already is, of course, centralization of functions within NIH, and that would include the review function. I’m still trying to figure out whether there is or isn’t new chief of staff at NCI. At NIH, excuse me.
Claire Marie Porter (20:54):At NIH, yeah. Well, is there anything else we need to talk about? Have we covered everything? All the highlights, key takeaways?
Paul Goldberg (21:03): We did. We did. Everything is figured out. Everything is covered, but they keep on flooding the zone and giving us things to do and to love our jobs even more. You do love your job.
Claire Marie Porter (21:18): I love my job.
Paul Goldberg (21:20): I do. I do too. It’s really, and I am saying this seriously, this job is a privilege for me.
Claire Marie Porter (21:30): No, no, me too.
Paul Goldberg (21:32): Fully agree. I was hoping to hear
Claire Marie Porter (21:34): That. We, we.
Paul Goldberg (21:35): Yes. Yes.
Claire Marie Porter (21:38): Well, you can listen to The Directors, which we mentioned, on The Cancer Letter Podcast, and thanks for listening to another episode of In the Headlines, and we’ll see you next time.
Paul Goldberg (21:51): Thank you for listening!
Claire Marie Porter (21:52): Thank you for listening.
Jacquelyn Cobb (21:55): Thank you for joining us on The Cancer Letter Podcast, where we explore the stories shaping the future of oncology. For more in-depth reporting and analysis, visit us at cancerletter.com. With over 200 site license subscriptions, you may already have access through your workplace. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share together, we’ll keep the conversation going.
Paul Goldberg (22:16): Until next time, stay informed. Stay engaged, and thank you for listening.
