Senator Bernie Sanders, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), has released a report criticizing the Trump administration for cutting funding to medical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and failing to lower prescription drug prices.
According to the report, more than 300 clinical trials have been defunded or frozen. The affected research includes studies on pediatric brain tumors, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and heart disease. The total amount cut from these projects is at least $561 million. This includes $273 million from cancer research across 116 grants, $111 million from heart disease research involving 71 grants, $94 million from Alzheimer’s research with 65 grants affected, and $83 million from diabetes research spread over 68 grants.
Sanders stated: “Trump promised to defeat childhood cancer. Trump promised to end chronic disease. Trump promised to lower prescription drug prices. He has done none of these things,” adding that “instead, Trump has terminated hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and heart disease research. He has abandoned patients in clinical trials. And he has done nothing to lower the outrageous prices Americans pay for the drugs their own tax dollars helped create.”
The report is based on NIH data as well as interviews with federal scientists and researchers. It also alleges that the administration uses a list of banned words—such as apartheid, adolescent, COVID, climate change, inequity and natural disasters—to determine which projects receive funding.
Additionally, the report notes that prescription drugs developed with taxpayer-funded NIH support are sold at significantly higher prices in the United States compared to other countries. For example:
- Gilead charges $504,000 for Yescarta in the U.S., while it costs less in countries like the United Kingdom ($377,000), Germany ($266,000), and Japan ($182,000).
- Johnson & Johnson’s HIV drug Symtuza is priced at $57,000 per year in America but costs between $8,900 and $11,000 abroad.
- Bristol Myers Squibb sells Abecma for $544,000 in America versus $394,000 in Canada.
Sanders concluded: “The American people are sick and tired of paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We need real action to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and substantially reduce the cost of prescription drugs for all Americans—not more lies and phony press releases from President Trump and his administration.”
