WASHINGTON – Today in a speech on the Senate floor, U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced that he will host Dr. Elizabeth Sokol, a pediatric oncologist and researcher from Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, as his guest for President Trump’s Joint Address to Congress tomorrow evening. In his remarks, Durbin underscored that President Trump and Elon Musk’s move to gut funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will have disastrous, long-term impacts for Americans suffering from cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and more, as well as for NIH-funded researchers like Dr. Sokol.
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“This annual address traces its roots back to our Founding Fathers, but I doubt they would even recognize their beloved country today. With President Trump and Elon Musk acting unrestrained, we are barreling down a dangerous path to a constitutional crisis,” Durbin said.
“I’m going to have a guest at the [Joint] Address tomorrow night, Dr. Elizabeth Sokol. She’s from Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. I know that hospital well. My daughter was treated there for years. I think it’s one of the best… For more than a decade, Dr. Sokol has been a pediatric oncologist at Lurie Children’s in Chicago. She treats young children with neuroblastoma, the leading cause of cancer death for children aged one to five. Dr. Sokol’s work—which includes conducting clinical trials on neuroblastoma… is funded by the National Institutes of Health,” Durbin said.
NIH, which provides $38 billion in research funding to institutions across the country, is a world leader in medical research, contributing to the study and development of treatments for pediatric cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s, ALS, diabetes, and heart disease. NIH-funded research is critical to advancing medical treatments, and the institution has contributed to the development of 99 percent of all drugs approved in the United States in the last decade.
“This is one of the agencies – the National Institutes of Health – that President Trump is dismantling through a series of abrupt, illegal, devastating funding cuts, gag orders, and mass firings. As a result of President Trump’s actions, Dr. Sokol’s work on neuroblastoma in kids… and the lives of the kids who depend on it, is in serious danger,” Durbin said.
While the White House is targeting NIH funding, congressional Republicans have proposed debilitating cuts, totaling $880 billion, to Medicaid in order to pay for their planned tax cuts for billionaires. Cuts of this magnitude would fundamentally alter the Medicaid program, likely reducing coverage or slashing benefits for millions of working families across the United States. In Illinois, 3.4 million individuals are enrolled in Medicaid, including nearly 1.5 million children. Further, in Illinois, Medicaid covers nearly half of all births, two-thirds of nursing home residents, the majority of patients with behavioral health needs, and is a lifeline for children’s and rural hospitals.
“Dr. Sokol’s hospital, Lurie Children’s, is staring down massive cuts to Medicaid for the life-saving treatment of critically ill children. Medicaid is the lifeline for children’s hospitals, covering nearly half of all kids in this country. If we go through with the planned budget we hear from the House, the cutbacks of 14.5 percent in Medicaid funding will dramatically hit American hospitals. Rural hospitals will close. Children’s hospitals will close. Programs will be shut down,” Durbin continued.
“For as long as I can stand and speak, I will be standing and speaking in support of NIH funding and the work of people like Dr. Sokol. She’s my guest tomorrow night because I want my colleagues… to meet this NIH researcher and hear from her first-hand what the cuts of Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing to children’s [medical] research in America,” Durbin concluded his remarks.
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