New NCI Director Says Administration Overtly Hostile to Cancer Research Is "Not Backing Away" From Cancer Research
A recording of the new director's first town hall reveals how he is trying to walk a difficult line between optimism and clear-eyed realism.
When the Trump administration's pick to be the new director of the National Cancer Institute was announced in September, many in science breathed a sigh of relief. Anthony Letai is a well respected Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute clinician and researcher, without any obvious red flags of the sort that have peppered other appointments inside Robert F. Kennedy's drastically diminished Department of Health and Human Services.
Letai's tenure began just before the government shut down for well over a month, but this past Friday as federal agencies geared back up after an enraging capitulation he held a first town hall to introduce himself to NCI staff and take questions. I obtained a recording of this town hall, which in general seemed to run smoothly and without much drama; there were, however, some notable moments — and a few spots where the likely need to, at the very least, not draw the ire of Letai's new bosses did rear its head.
"I also want to thank President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for having the confidence to give me what I consider to be, for a cancer biologist, the dream job of a lifetime," Letai said at one point. In expressing his admiration for the institution and its staff, he made a key point about NCI's centrality: "Probably every single good thing that has happened in the treatment of cancer patients in this country, and hence worldwide, started with an NCI grant or an NCI intramural project."
Asked what he is optimistic about, Letai said that in general, the public is deeply supportive of cancer research and of NCI's work. "To be sort of stark about it, it polls great," he said. "Every politician wishes he or she polled like cancer research." This is true: one recent poll found that 89 percent of voters want the federal government to pay for cancer research; 83 percent think the dollars spent should go up, and that included 75 percent of Republicans.
Letai tried to reassure the attendees that the Trump administration is on board and on the same team as his audience: "I want to make it clear, the NCI is not backing away from cancer research," he said. "It's not backing away from its mission in the least. The administration is not backing away."
So... about that.
