Every Mainer knows someone with cancer. The type I have, low-grade serous ovarian cancer, is fairly rare, tends to grow slowly and recurs often. Given that one tumor is inoperable, cancer will always be a part of my life. Chemo shrunk my cancer. I also have great emotional support and good health insurance, so I’ve been lucky in some ways.

But now everyone with cancer, including me, is being harmed by the actions of President Trump, Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

For one, the Trump administration has attacked cancer research.

The federal government played a huge role in generating amazing advances. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) deciphered the human genome, unlocking applied research producing targeted therapies based on one’s genetic mutation, including one I have. Immunology emerged as a new tool for treating some cancers. Pancreatic cancer is a scary disease because survival rates are so dire, but a recent clinical trial using personalized mRNA vaccines shows great promise for longer lives.

Yet medical research has been harmed since Trump became president. NIH told grant applicants to delete mentions of mRNA from their proposals. Many clinical trials have been cut part way through, making initial data worthless. Also, swiftly stopping a treatment can harm patients. Since Trump was inaugurated, NIH research funding is down $3 billion — almost a 60% drop —  compared to the same time last year.

Moreover, we are on the verge of losing a generation of new cancer researchers. Consider what’s going on in Rachael Sirianni’s lab at UMass medical school. In mid-March, Professor Sirianni announced, “We are essentially shutting down research operations in my group, which is focused on treatments for pediatric brain cancer.” That’s because NIH cuts and delays led to admissions for biomedical Ph.D. students being canceled. Even before that, the Trump administration stopped grant proposals for funding scientists and students to do research from being evaluated (some have been restarted).

Congress also cut cancer funding in its recent continuing resolution. In fact, congressionally directed funding was zeroed out for kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, glioblastoma and lung cancer.

Fewer grants mean fewer new, better treatments.

In addition, Food and Drug Administration cuts will halt or slow treatments in the pipeline getting approved, keeping them from patients. Top cancer drug regulators won’t be working for the FDA soon. RFK Jr., who Sen. Susan Collins voted for, just ousted FDA leader Peter Marks, an oncologist who oversaw breakthroughs in gene therapies for cancer. There’s been a plan to try to get FDA approval soon for a promising drug regimen for my cancer, but that could be delayed.

And other actions make it harder on cancer patients. Working women with my type and stage of cancer are eligible for swift approval of Social Security disability benefits, but the huge cuts to Social Security staff means they’d probably have to wait quite a while. Trump health officials’ anti-vaccine stance will make it more dangerous for people on chemotherapy, whose immune systems are compromised, to be out and about. Tens of thousands of highly trained experts at the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were fired.

People all over Maine will suffer as federal cuts undermine Maine’s treatment facilities, research institutions and public health efforts. As was reported in the Portland Press Herald, “Since 2017, Maine has lost several cancer treatment centers, including the closure of the oncology practice at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston in July 2023.” The only gynecological oncologists in our state are in Southern Maine. Now the Republican-controlled Congress and President Trump want to slash Medicaid, which will further hurt Maine’s patients and hospitals, particularly in rural parts of the state.

Trump, Musk and Kennedy are also severely degrading cancer prevention efforts by cutting anti-tobacco programs, environmental monitoring of toxins and more.

All this harms so many and, unless swiftly reversed, much of it will be hard to recover from. But we can raise our voices to try to stop the damage.