Claire Marie Porter is a reporter with The Cancer Letter. She joined the publication in 2024.
Before joining The Cancer Letter, Claire was a freelance health and science journalist with bylines in The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Undark Magazine, Popular Science, WIRED among other publications. She graduated with an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in 2020, where she received honors for her thesis "The Deadly Itch" on Intrahepatic Cholestasis of pregnancy.
She was a 2020 Society of Environmental Journalists grant recipient, and completed internships with Next City and National Public Radio.
She graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor’s degree in English in 2013.
Before joining The Cancer Letter, Claire was a freelance health and science journalist with bylines in The Atlantic, Scientific American, The Washington Post, Undark Magazine, Popular Science, WIRED among other publications. She graduated with an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University in 2020, where she received honors for her thesis "The Deadly Itch" on Intrahepatic Cholestasis of pregnancy.
She was a 2020 Society of Environmental Journalists grant recipient, and completed internships with Next City and National Public Radio.
She graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor’s degree in English in 2013.
Regulatory News
Vinay Prasad, a MAHA-aligned hematologist-oncologist with an avid cyber following, was named director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, where he will be responsible for the agency’s regulation of vaccines and biologics, including cell and gene therapies.
Cancer Policy
In a statement issued on May 1, NIH said it’s immediately halting most new grant awards to foreign partners working in US-led research consortia.
Cancer Policy
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).
Cancer Policy
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).
Cancer Policy
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.
White House
An updated version of President Trump’s budget request published on May 2 comes as a disappointment for those who hoped that the White House would rethink the draconian cuts contained in an earlier, confidential version of the document that ended up being leaked to the press.
