Rep. Jim McGovern pleads for NIH funding in budget bill after daughter dies of cancer: "This is personal"
Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts made an emotional plea for Congress to restore grant funding for researchers at the National Institutes of Health as lawmakers debated President Trump's budget bill Wednesday night.
McGovern's daughter Molly died unexpectedly from complications of a rare cancer last month while on a trip to Italy. She was 23 years old.
"This is personal to me," the Worcester Democrat told the Rules Committee. "Five years ago, my daughter Molly was diagnosed with a rare cancer and there was no surefire treatment, but she was accepted into an NIH clinical trial and she received excellent care."
McGovern said the issue is "life or death" for people in ongoing clinical trials like his daughter Molly was.
"We are so devastated by her loss," he said. "But we are so grateful that we got to spend more time with her because of the NIH clinical trial that she was in. A clinical trial made possible because for decades, Congress has provided funding to the NIH in a bipartisan way."
Scientists at the NIH told "60 Minutes" last month that they feared NIH cuts could impact the health of Americans for generations. Some of the top scientists at the NIH have been laid off.
"How can anyone justify firing NIH doctors and scientists?" McGovern said. "How can they look our family and other families in the eye and justify these cynical, cruel NIH cuts?"
It was reported this week that former President Biden's "Cancer Moonshot" was hit by Trump administration cuts to research at Harvard University and Columbia University. Cancer scientists at Harvard said they've seen NIH funding disappear recently because of the funding freeze.
