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.
Latest Stories
Capitol Hill
In a 96-minute hearing in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee on the Trump administration’s budget, senators slammed NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya for not taking responsibility for the funding cuts to research and upheaval at NIH.
Clinical
For more than a year before her stage 4 lung cancer was found, 35-year-old Alisa Secaida, a never-smoker and a physically active Southern Californian, had been experiencing a persistent cough and, increasingly, fatigue.
Cancer Policy
After a sequence of events that unfolded publicly on NCI’s Instagram feed May 28, RIFed and “retired” members of the NCI communications team took to the independent social media platform BlueSky, creating an alternative and anonymous social media presence.
Pfizer External Research & Grants’ “Improving Breast Cancer Quality of Care via Meaningful Capacity Building in Sub-Saharan Africa,” powered by EveryGrant, has announced grants totaling more than $900,000 for addressing inequities and improving the quality of breast cancer care in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Cancer Policy
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is considering a ban on government scientists publishing their work in top-tier medical journals, which he says are abed with pharmaceutical companies.
Cancer Policy
The U.S. State Department has ordered U.S. embassies and consulates around the world to halt appointments for new student visas as the Trump administration prepares to increase social media vetting for all foreign students applying to study in the U.S.
Clinical
The American Society of Clinical Oncology and Google Cloud have developed a tool called the ASCO Guidelines Assistant to help oncologists parse through and interpret clinical practice guidelines.
Cancer Policy
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” this week which included drastic, $715 billion cuts to Medicaid that will result in at least 8.6 million people losing health insurance coverage, including cancer patients and survivors.
Cancer Policy
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary held a roundtable of independent scientific experts to discuss the safety and necessity of talc as an additive to food, drugs, and cosmetic products.
Cancer Policy
FDA—under the leadership of cyber-iconoclast and new director of the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Vinay Prasad—is taking a new approach to COVID-19 vaccines.
Cancer Policy
In the ongoing escalation of the feud between Harvard University and the Trump White House has imperiled hundreds of research grants at Harvard’s medical school.
Cancer Policy
Harvard University has sued the Trump administration a second time since the start of the ongoing feud between the university and White House.
Cancer Policy
A three-judge federal appeals court has lifted a lower court order that blocked the federal government from enacting President Trump’s executive order to end collective bargaining by workers at more than a dozen federal agencies.
Capitol Hill
In back-to-back congressional hearings earlier this week, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that the massive staff and budget cuts over which he has presided during his nearly four months on the job as well as even bigger cuts still looming on the horizon are a part of a single plan.
Cancer Policy
Before two consecutive congressional hearings on the Trump administration’s “skinny budget” proposal on May 14, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, released a report assessing the administration’s impact on biomedical research.
Cancer Policy
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce budget reconciliation bill, which includes attacks on Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage and fails to extend ACA tax credits, would increase the number of uninsured people by at least 13.7 million.
Cancer Policy
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a tracking poll compiling data from the first 100 days of the Trump administration.
Cancer Policy
Harvard amends lawsuit against Trump administration, includes additional defendants and funding cuts
Harvard University filed an amended lawsuit against the Trump administration, seeking to add two more federal agencies as defendants and to address the administration’s widening efforts to cut the university’s federal funding—now targeting over $2.6 billion and all future grants.
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.
Capitol Hill
In the starkest opposition yet by Republicans to the Trump administration’s attacks on HHS agencies, senators from both parties sounded an alarm about the damage being done to biomedical research in the U.S.
“We stand at the edge of discovery, and on the brink of losing it,” said Patricia M. LoRusso, the 2024-2025 president of the American Association for Cancer Research. “I believe this is the most scientifically promising moment in the history of cancer research.”
Regulatory News
In his first sit-down interview since beginning his role as FDA commissioner 17 days earlier, Marty Makary, a former Johns Hopkins surgeon and the only Trump pick for HHS whose confirmation received Democratic support, said he would speed up approvals for rare-disease treatments by reducing reliance on animal testing and shifting towards organoids and computational models.
Cancer Policy
On April 21, Women’s Health Initiative investigators were informed that HHS would be terminating the WHI Regional Center contracts at the end of the current fiscal year.
Cancer Policy
At least two medical journals have received letters from the Trump administration accusing them of political bias.
Cancer Policy
Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, will resign from the position 16 months before the scheduled end of his six-year term.
Clinical
For a year before an osteosarcoma was found in her right proximal tibia, Sammy Ulloa, pushing through pain, persisted with her training as a Division I track and field and cross-country competitor.
Nov. 6, 2023, was a bad day for Tom Curran, a charming scientist with a lilting Scottish brogue and the lifelong dream of curing childhood cancers.
The day before health economist Jay Bhattacharya stepped into his new role as NIH director, he sent a document to his employees outlining his top five priorities for the department, which included “reproducibility” and “transparency,” two themes he discussed at his confirmation hearings (The Cancer Letter, March 7, 2025).
Capitol Hill
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it is making sweeping revisions by cutting personnel, centralizing functions, and consolidating divisions.
News Analysis
For over a month since President Trump announced his intent to impose aggressive new tariffs on America’s friends and foes alike, lobbyists for hospitals, medical societies, and makers of branded and generic drugs have been trying to convince him to rethink.
Regulatory News
Government work isn’t what it used to be.
Regulatory News
In a speech before a joint session of Congress, President Trump briefly addressed pediatric cancer, pointing to a 13-year old brain tumor survivor, Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel, who was watching from the gallery, making his dream come true by naming him a Secret Service agent.
Clinical
Each year, nearly 14 million people in the U.S. contract human papillomavirus, a common, sexually-transmitted virus that can cause several cancers.
White House
On the evening of Feb. 15, when the dreaded letter of termination arrived, an NCI employee was just a few weeks away from job security—the end of the probationary period.
White House
As NCI employees and others at HHS were receiving notices of termination, national cancer organizations called on Congress “to restore stability to NIH.”
White House
An estimated 5,200 of HHS employees have been fired during the course of this week. Since the firings are ongoing, no final tally of their extent exists. At this writing, approximately 1,200 of the fired HHS employees were working at NIH, about 700 at FDA, and 750 at CDC.
White House
Earlier this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services amid many resignations at federal health agencies and cancellations of NIH and NCAB meetings. All of this happened at a time when the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to fire thousands of HHS workers.
Capitol Hill
Robert F. Kenedy Jr., an antivaccine advocate and President Trump’s MAHA nominee, has cleared a key hurdle to be confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services.
Capitol Hill
In two raucous back-to-back hearings on Jan. 29 and Jan. 30, anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was grilled by members of the United States Senate Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee as the Trump administration seeks his confirmation as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Real-world Evidence
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has implications that reach far beyond access to reproductive health care services in the 41 states that ban or restrict access to abortion.
White House
Credit for photos: White HouseIn 1992, 44-year old Philly trial lawyer and breast cancer survivor, Fran Visco, took the stand before the Senate Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations Subcommittee, asserting a tone and stance previously unfamiliar in the world of cancer groups asking for funding before Congress.
Capitol Hill
On Saturday, Dec. 21, Congress passed a new spending package, narrowly averting a government shutdown.
“Bridge to Bahia” exhibit.Source: Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer CenterKaren Estrada, a survivor of acute myeloid leukemia, used visual art to communicate with her two boys while undergoing a bone marrow transplant at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. Because Estrada’s treatment required isolation, and her young children could not yet read and write, she sought out other creative vessels to foster closeness between them.
The NCI Board of Scientific Advisors approved four new concepts and five reissue concepts at a joint meeting of the BSA and the National Cancer Advisory Board Dec. 2-3.
News Analysis
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist whom Trump has chosen to run HHS, would have the capacity to roll back core public health protections, including protections for people with cancer, and dismantle research related to infectious diseases, public health experts warn.
Clinical
New data indicate that, professional guidelines notwithstanding, doctors rarely address concerns about sexual health when they treat women with cancer.
In the Archives
As oncology contemplates the potential impact of a second Donald Trump term on cancer care and research, The Cancer Letter has compiled a list of guest editorials, news analyses, and data-driven reports that this magazine published during his first term.
Regulatory News
FDA’s cancer czar Richard Pazdur had a “silver anniversary” at the agency recently. So, he invited some guests—the commissioners he had reported to under the Democratic and Republican administrations.
Regulatory News
More than a month has passed since Hurricane Helene took out Baxter North Cove plant, which manufactured 1.5 million IV fluid bags per day, supplying 60% of the intravenous solutions nationwide.
Clinical
NCI has launched a second-generation precision medicine clinical trial called Myeloid Malignancies Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice, or myeloMATCH, a trial focused on acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes.
Ivan Borrello, medical director of the Myeloma, Bone Marrow Transplant and Cell Therapies Program at Tampa General Hospital’s Cancer Institute, watched as flood waters from Hurricane Helene heaved against a contraption called the AquaFence, which is, as the name suggests, a water-impermeable barrier made of marine-grade laminate and various metals that can withstand storm surges of up to 15 feet above sea level.
Hurricane Milton via satellite on Wednesday. Source: NOAA/NESDISSTAR GOES-EastMilton—the second hurricane in as many weeks—ripped through America’s southeast, causing severe flooding, washing away bridges, knocking out power and water supply.
Conversation with The Cancer Letter
Every summer since 2010, ten undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds get the opportunity to explore any curiosities they might have about careers in medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Regulatory News
Collage art of mammograms of dense breastsIllustrator: Cyrus FineganWhile breast cancer experts are anything but clear on what the words “dense breasts” signify in the clinic, or for that matter, in the English language, FDA appears to be less perplexed.
The 2024 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award went to Zhijian “James” Chen. The Lasker~DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award went to Joel Habener, Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, and Svetlana Mojsov. The Lasker~Bloomberg Public Service Award went to Quarraisha Abdool Karim and Salim S. Abdool Karim.
