Government Tackles Cancer by Defunding Cures, Cites ‘Bad Vibes’ from Scientists

IN SHORT: A SUMMARY FOR THE TERMINALLY CYNICAL

In a bold move to streamline the healthcare system, the Trump administration has decided to remove the “hope” and “research” parts of the equation, focusing instead on the “thoughts and prayers” sector.
The justification for this intellectual bloodletting is that scientists used naughty words like “trans” and were mean during the pandemic by insisting on things like “not dying.”
Top scientists are reportedly updating their passports and learning to say “We are seeking political and intellectual asylum” in several languages.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The National Institutes of Health will be replaced by the National Institutes of Faith, where all grant proposals will be vetted by a panel of televangelists. Leeches are expected to make a major comeback. Cancer survival rates are projected to return to the nostalgically grim levels of the 1970s.

Make America Great Again, indeed.

This is not a budget cut. You need to understand that. This is a purge. This is an ideological war waged not against a foreign enemy, but against the future itself.

Let’s begin with Silvia Federici, because this is a modern-day witch hunt, plain and simple. Federici documented how the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries were a tool to destroy folk knowledge, seize common resources, and discipline the population, particularly women. What are we seeing here? The state is hunting for witches in grant proposals, flagging hot-button words like “DEI” and “trans.” The target isn’t really diversity; the target is science. It’s a pretext to defund and dismantle an institution of knowledge that operates on principles of evidence and peer review—principles that are fundamentally hostile to an authoritarian regime that runs on pure ideology and grievance. This is an attack on the commons of human knowledge, and a direct assault on our collective body’s ability to heal itself.

Then you have Howard Zinn, who would remind us to always ask: Who benefits and who suffers? The suffering is obvious: the 38.9 percent of Americans who will get cancer. The children with medulloblastoma whose last hope is a professor whose lab is about to be shut down. The quote from Rachael Sirianni is the voice of Zinn’s “people’s history” in its purest form: “When you remove me from the ecosystem, you are removing something that can’t be replaced.” This is the real, human cost that is deliberately ignored by those in power.

And who benefits? The grifters. The charlatans. The people who will sell you snake oil and miracle cures once the institutions of real science are gutted. And, of course, the political class that solidifies its power by proving it can destroy anything that challenges its authority, even the very concept of objective reality.

And Noam Chomsky would look at the propaganda and simply nod. The justification is a masterwork of misdirection. You create a bogeyman—the “corrupt, oppressive, politicized” health apparatus—to justify destroying a national asset. You leverage the public’s (partially justified) distrust from the chaotic COVID response not to reform the system, but to obliterate it. You have RFK Jr., a man whose entire brand is built on undermining scientific consensus, put in charge of Health and Human Services, and what does he do? He cancels promising work on an mRNA cancer vaccine. It’s like appointing an arsonist as fire chief. Chomsky’s lesson is to always look at the function, not the rhetoric. The function here is to dismantle the public good and create a vacuum of ignorance and despair that only authoritarian power can fill.

History’s Echoes: The Perennial War on Knowledge and the Vulnerable

This isn’t just history repeating; this is history doing the Macarena with a chainsaw.

The Luddites and the Fear of Progress: New knowledge and technologies are often met with resistance when they threaten existing power structures or traditional ways of thinking. The Luddites smashed machines that threatened their livelihoods. Here, we see a modern Luddism, not against machines, but against the process of scientific inquiry itself, because its findings might contradict cherished ideological beliefs. The “distrust” of the “health apparatus” isn’t a rational critique; it’s a visceral rejection of any authority that isn’t absolute and unquestioning. It’s an attempt to enclose the commons of scientific knowledge, to deem it “corrupt” and therefore unworthy of public support.
“Manufactured Ignorance”: This is a textbook case of manufacturing ignorance to serve a political agenda. When you actively defund the institutions that produce knowledge, you create a vacuum that can be filled with misinformation, conspiracy theories, and politically convenient narratives. The cuts aren’t just about saving money; they’re about discrediting a powerful, independent source of truth (science) that often challenges the status quo. If you can make people distrust scientists, doctors, and universities, then they’ll be more susceptible to whatever alternative facts you’re peddling. It’s like breaking all the thermometers because you don’t like the temperature.
The War on the Vulnerable: The powerful prey on the vulnerable. Who benefits from less cancer research? Nobody. Who suffers? The sick, the poor, the marginalized, those who rely on public health initiatives. This isn’t a policy of strength; it’s a policy of callous disregard for human life, especially for those who don’t have the political capital to fight back. It’s the ultimate act of abandoning your own people, under the guise of “fighting corruption.” It’s kicking a puppy while yelling “freedom!”
The Anti-Intellectual Strain in American History: This isn’t new. America has always had a strong anti-intellectual streak, a distrust of “elites” and “experts.” From religious fundamentalism rejecting evolution to populist movements railing against “pointy-headed professors,” this strain rises and falls. Under Trump, it’s not just rising; it’s driving the bus. When a Nobel laureate asks, “Why would we want to destroy one of our greatest assets?” and the answer is “Because we don’t trust you, and your assets are worthless to us if they don’t align with our dogma,” you’re witnessing a profound societal shift.

The Moral of This Terminal Diagnosis

The moral is terrifyingly simple: When ideology trumps scientific fact, humanity pays the price in suffering and death. When the pursuit of knowledge is deemed “politicized” and “corrupt,” the entire foundation of progress crumbles.

It’s like a bunch of preschoolers deciding to run the nuclear power plant. They’re convinced they know better than the engineers.

What could possibly go wrong?

Bill Hicks once said, “It’s always a choice between fear and love.” This is a story about a government run entirely by fear. Fear of knowledge, fear of experts, fear of a reality that doesn’t conform to their ideology.

An ideology that is afraid of the truth will eventually declare war on reality itself. And the first casualty in a war on reality is always the future.

You can’t build a future on grievance and spite.

You can only burn down the present.

What to Expect Next (Because the Symptoms Are Clear)

The Great Brain Drain: This is already happening. America’s single greatest asset—its scientific and intellectual capital—will hemorrhage. The best minds will go to Europe, to Asia, to anywhere a scientist isn’t treated like a political enemy. We will be exporting our future.
A Golden Age of Grift: With the collapse of federally-funded, peer-reviewed research, the medical marketplace will be flooded with quackery. Desperate people will be sold expensive, useless, and dangerous “treatments.” The wellness-to-conspiracy-theory pipeline will become a superhighway. When established science is delegitimized, the vacuum is filled by snake oil salesmen, alternative “cures,” and outright fraud. Expect a surge in pseudo-science and dangerous, unproven treatments, because if you can’t trust the NIH, who can you trust? Apparently, the guy selling miracle cures on late-night infomercials.
A Harvest of Death: The five-year cancer survival rate, which has been one of the great public health triumphs of the last 50 years, will stagnate and then begin to fall. This is the quiet, brutal, mathematical certainty of this policy. They are sentencing thousands of people to death with these budget cuts.
A Broader Assault on Public Health: This isn’t just about cancer. The “distrust” of the “health apparatus” will extend to other areas: infectious disease, mental health, environmental health. Any public health initiative that requires collective action or goes against individual “freedom” (like vaccines) will be targeted.

This is what happens when a society decides that its resentments are more important than its survival.

Welcome to the Dark Ages, 2.0.

This time, we’re burning the libraries ourselves, and we’re calling it fiscal responsibility.

What Can You Do?

This is not a time for polite debate; this is a time for fierce, unwavering defense of science, truth, and human life.

Individually:

Be a Champion of Science: Speak out. Support scientific institutions. Push back against misinformation. Share factual information from reputable sources. Don’t let the algorithms trick you into thinking everyone believes the Earth is flat and vaccines cause autism.
Support Biomedical Research: Donate to non-profits that fund cancer research and other vital medical science. If the government won’t do it, the people must.
Vote for Sanity: Seriously. This isn’t about left or right anymore; this is about basic competence and a respect for human life. Vote for leaders who value evidence, expertise, and the well-being of their constituents over ideological purity.

Collectively:

Organize and Resist: Organize protests, letter-writing campaigns, and advocacy efforts to pressure elected officials to restore and increase funding for scientific research. Make this an issue that cannot be ignored.
Defend Intellectual Institutions: Support universities, research labs, and public health organizations. They are the frontline defense against ignorance and disease.
Demand Accountability from Media and Social Platforms: Push for platforms to combat health misinformation, not amplify it. Demand that media outlets accurately report on scientific consensus, rather than giving equal weight to fringe conspiracy theories.

Because if we let them cripple our ability to fight disease, then we’re not just losing a political battle; we’re losing our future, one life at a time.

And no amount of “owning the libs” is worth that.

This is a parody of the original article at https://futurism.com/neoscope/trump-shutting-down-cancer-research