GOP Sen. Susan Collins urges Trump administration to reverse proposed medical research cuts

With Charlie in tow, Stenson flew across the country, from Washington state to the nation’s capital, to testify before the bipartisan panel of senators. 

“I’m hoping to put a face to childhood cancer and to show that we’re real families, that it’s not just kids on commercials to pull at heartstrings. We’re real people, we are their constituents, and we rely on research. We cannot have them cutting things that are saving our kids’ lives,” Stenson said, tearing up as she watched Charlie color beside her.

Stenson began her remarks before the committee by saying: “I sit before you not only as a mother, but as a witness to what federally supported research can make possible and what it would mean to lose it.”

Earlier this year the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, fired more than 1,000 researchers, scientists and workers at the NIH, and issued a mandate to cut more than $2 billion in contracts. A leaked draft restructuring plan at the Department of Health and Human Services, run by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., proposed a 44% cut to the overall NIH budget, according to the document obtained by NBC News. 

Collins argued that Republicans, who are in full control of Washington, “have a great deal of ability” to push back on the administration’s policies. She has privately discussed the matter with Kennedy as well as others in the administration, but stressed the importance of holding public hearings, too. Collins suggested the administration has broken the law with some of its unilateral actions on funding at the NIH, including imposing a 15% cap on administrative and facility costs.

“I’m hoping that we can show what the impact is of arbitrarily reducing staff by thousands of people, by cutting grants all around the country and by causing clinical trials to be halted. When people realize, and when the administration more fully realizes that it acted too quickly, without looking at the devastating effects, I think we’ll see a reversal of many of these policies,” Collins said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Appropriators in the Capitol anticipate an updated budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 as soon as Friday, according to three sources with knowledge of plans. It comes as a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 77% of Americans are opposed to reducing federal funding for medical research.

Sen. Patty Murray, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, invited her constituent, Stenson — who also advocates for other families battling childhood cancer — to testify before the panel. 

Asked if the administration understands the impacts these cuts could have, Murray said she believes “they sit in an office someplace and have no idea that there are Charlies and Emilys out there that are counting on them.”

Collins argued that “President Trump has always wanted the United States to be the world leader in everything,” but that the cuts could actually “cause the United States to be displaced by China or some other country.”

Murray agreed.

“How can you say to a little girl at Children’s Hospital in Seattle that ‘we’d love to help you, but we can’t, because China has the research and you don’t?’” Murray said. “We won’t own the research. We don’t have access to it unless China says that we have access to it.”