Raw Transcript
Welcome to News Nation. Chris Cuomo here. Thank you for joining us uh for a special and needed conversation. Cancer. I know the topic is hard. It's painful. It's personal. Uh it's hard for me, too. I hate cancer. I fear it because I've lived too many stories of losing to it. I grew up when we would not say the word out loud. It would be whispered the big C. That's how powerless we felt. All we could do is hide and hope. But it finds us anyway, right? It's stolen so much. It's stolen so many from all of us, including me. It's in my family. It's in your family. It's a thief and a liar. And it tortures us. One simple question motivated us to do this tonight. Why haven't we beaten cancer? Innovative breakthroughs in society every other second. Everything's getting better. AI is here. Even AIDS can be controlled. And yet, cancer keeps killing. In fact, while there is progress, and we'll talk about it tonight, since 2020, mortality has increased in some cancers among kids. And I'll tell you about that, too. According to the American Cancer Society in the United States, in this year 2026, they project that there going to be over 2.1 million new cancer cases. Over 626,000 cancer deaths. That is 1720 people every damn day dead from something that we've been throwing everything at supposedly for decades. Or have we? Tonight we're going to look at the system, what it rewards, what it requires, and why there is this new urgency. What is it? The recent uptick affecting whom we say we want to protect the most, kids. Since 2020, brain, nervous systemdriven cancer rates for kids under five years of age have increased by about 9% 13%. For kids ages 5 through 14. Take a look at this. For decades, there was progress, right? Until 2020. Why the pandemic? Doesn't there have to be more to the story? Notice the red line, which is why I know there's more to the story. There's the United States trend line. The blue is the rest of the world that also had the pandemic. Meaning cancer rates are higher in the United States than the global average. And it's like that for all age groups. How how is that possible in America when we spend more money on cancer research than any other country? We're supposed to be leading the way. Tonight you're going to hear funding is an issue. Process is an issue. The insurance industry is a big freaking issue. Do the overlords of our medical insurance industry prefer the illness to the cure? A harsh suggestion, I know, but then why does progress lag in in so many areas? Why are costs rising faster than results? More than half of patients on active treatment are underinsured, often spending more than 10% of their household income, out of pocket with 42% reporting a catastrophic burden. I don't know what our government throws more resources at in terms of fighting disease than cancer. There's 73 National Cancer Institute designated cancer centers. They're located across the whole country, 37 different states in our nation's capital. In the year's funding, the National Cancer Institute received $7.35 billion. It was an increase of $128 million compared to its 2025 funding. Of it, about 43.8% is committed to research project grants. Take a look at this chart. While we certainly have made improvements in survival rates, look, the the truth is enough, okay? I don't have to hype this. Breast cancer had a 75% survival rate in the 70s, now it's about 90%. Pancreatic cancer 3% in the 70s, now it's about 13%. Look, it's not great, but there is improvement. But why is it not great? As you can see on the chart, survival rates across several types of cancers have improved. What is holding us back? Let's discuss. Uh I do have the good fortune of people stepping up to want to be part of this conversation. Okay. Um now some of the administration's top doctors and policy makers. Okay. Also with us in the studio tonight, brave men and women who have survived and want to tell you what it takes to survive and people who are desperate for help so they can continue to survive. The panel first, director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Badacharia. Okay, very nice to have you, doc. Thank you for taking the opportunity. Director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Anthony Latai. Doc, it's good to have you. I saw you giving me the stink eye about those statistics. You can defend yourself a second. CEO of Parker Institute for Cancer Imunotherapy, Dr. Karen Kudson. Dr. Good to have you. And my friend Dr. Patrick Sunong, who you may remember from our special killing cancer that overwhelmed us with need in this country. I don't know how he makes his choices. He'll discuss it tonight. His imunotherapy drug Antiva has currently been approved just for bladder cancer here, but he's getting more approval abroad. He has seen great success, he says, in trials with several different kinds of cancers. He understands the system. Also with us today, front row audience, possibly one of our most important guests, no offense to the other guests that are now all looking at me wrong, former associate commisser, commissioner of the FDA, Peter Pittz. Why does he matter? He knows the process. He knows the pitfalls. He knows where fingers should be pointed. At the end of the show tonight, okay, we're going to look back at who was here and I'll give you a hint. Okay, at the end of the night, this show is going to be about who is here. Thank God for them and for being willing to discuss and be open. But this story is about who is not here, who is not in this room, who doesn't want to have this conversation. And I've had too many people die on my watch who matter to me to let him get away with it. And you will see and it will be clear to you at the end of the night as well. I promise you that. So let's discuss. Pat, I'll start with you. You have looked doctor at this from the outside, from the inside. What do you think matters most for people to understand at home about what has to change for us to really approach a cure for the range of cancers? I think what has to change is the recognition that your immune system matters the most. Period. And your immune system is represented by the cells that kill cancer called the natural killer cells and T- cell also known as lymphocytes. Without those T- cells or ENK cells, you have no chance of long-term survival. That is the prism, the new lens where we need to look at with regard to the treatment of cancer. >> Answer this quick question then I want to go to Karen to the uninitiated right uh personified by this face looking at you right now that does not have the sophistication. It could sound to my ears as if you're saying fight it off like it was a cold. Like that's the best thing we can do with cancer is like make sure you have a strong immune system so that you can fight it off. What about medicine? What about treatments? What about what we thought this was all about, which is you giving me something to help me overcome it? >> It's because of how we sort of start this 40, 50 years ago. We developed drugs, rightly so, to find a way to where we could shrink the tumor. But we came from a period of war. So nitrogen mustard, which was phosphine gas, was the first chemotherapy developed. So the idea was if we go use this and it reduces the tumor and kills the tumor and hundreds of drugs were developed as a consequence with that prism. We did not realize then because the discovery wasn't made. So it's nothing bad by any people. In so doing when we highdose doesn't mean we never used the chemo. We knock out the very cells in our body that we were born with that kills cancer called natural killer cells and tea cells. >> So rather than using it at a high dose, we can now use chemo and radiation at a dose that actually just stresses or flushes out the tumor to expose it to your immune system. And if then we can find a way to activate your immune system simultaneously now you have a different lens where your immune system is then using the chemo in its way but for a different reason as a what I call imunom modulation your T- cells and ENK cells are now armed to go kill the cancer. >> So the question uh that we'll talk about with Pat uh tonight and doc I want you to come in because it will also be at some point well then why won't you approve it? Why won't you give it a break? Why does it have to be so honorous? And we'll talk about that and I got my friend from the FDA to help fill us in. But does this comport with your understanding of the culture of approaching a cure? >> I mean, I think, you know, when I was a medical student in the '90s, the idea of immune therapy was was science fiction. I've been watching these advances uh with just astonishment and awe. There's been a huge change in in thinking about this. And the NIH has been at the lead forefront of this. uh for for decades we've had scientists that have been that had immune therapy as a as an idea and then testing the idea. I mean science is slow. Actually, can I broaden the discussion just a little bit because I think it's really important. >> No, stick to what I said. No, of course you can. Please, >> if you don't mind. Um uh the reason why we've had progress in cancer, it it involves advancing new ideas for cures, but it also means that we have a much better understanding of how to prevent cancer. like the the drop in mortality from lung cancer is because of smoking. We've we've we've we've reduced our smoking rates. Um so in that in that sense what you said earlier about you know we your healthy bodies preventing cancer. I mean that's partly true. It's not all of the story but it's part part of the story. Um and so I think you know I think uh you want to think about cancer uh not just a as a single way to go go about it but like a you you want to use all of the above and it's hard. You I mean you laid out the story very well. It's very very difficult. But we've had a 30% reduction in all cause mortality from cancer since 1990. And that's something really to celebrate. We have huge drops in smoking rates um that have led to improvements in lung cancer. And then finally, you know, screening so that we catch cancer early. >> Those are all really important part of our armamentarian. >> I want you to pick up Karen. You know, it's good because I can talk to all of you as doctor. So I really don't have to know who any of you are, which is a convenience. But take that experience that he's talking about. tell people what you do which is why you know >> yeah okay so absolutely so so so let's level set so I agree that the immune system and immunology is how we are going to cure cancer and and to kind of over answer your overarching question at the beginning why aren't we haven't we c cured cancer why aren't we curing cancer the bottom line is we are but cancer is not diabetes or cardiovascular disease it's 200 different diseases that all arise to different reasons and require different strategies for cure The tie that binds is going to be amunotherapy. But everything Jay just said was correct. So the high water mark in this country for cancer mortality rate was 1991. And since then we've had a 34% reduction overall in those in mortality for those 200 different cancers. If you unpack the why as you watch that slope go down from 1991, it started off very much being driven by prevention and early detection and smoking cessation right up there. But and we can now eliminate cancers. We know we can eliminate the six different HPV human papilloma virus driven cancers through vaccination. Those cancers just won't happen. So that progress of getting science to people is working and it's working even in an even greater way now in the curative setting. So if you looked at the most recent data now you're starting to see the investment of the US public in research bear fruit because what you're seeing is this drop in lung cancer metastatic melanoma and over my lifetime in oncology a time of where multiple myyoma was a death sentence to now we are curing those patients and have so many options that patients have choice based on quality of life. we are getting there. And so then the question I think is not um is not so much of you know why do why haven't we cured all cancers is why haven't we cured the cancers that are getting away from us and what can we learn from the successes that we've had to do something about it but those therapies that are driving now down the the mortal mortality rates they have a common denominator it's imunotherapy that's why we're in the game >> so we're going to talk later about what you can do to fasttrack that what isn't being done through Pat's experience with the process But your supposition is very sanguin and I respect that because you know what you're talking about. But this >> those days >> this room, this city, this state, this country is filled with people who are up against it if they get the diagnosis. And it seems that for whatever the potential is, the system is against them more than it is with them. And we were talking a little bit about it before the show. Uh but it seems like whether it's the money, the money that drives the access, the money that drives the testing, the money that drives the test, the treatment, they are in the business of listening to no on the patient's side. And how is that not part of the problem? >> Yeah. So there so we're in this interesting time, right, where the pace of scientific discovery is greater than ever before. Our ability to get those discoveries into clinical testing and into the hands of patients has a big bottleneck. And then the affordability is also a major bottleneck for patients. 40% of people in this country who get a new cancer diagnosis deplete their entire life savings in two years. And that is not sustainable. Um you know some of these curative therapies that we've talked about that that are truly changing the the course of disease for patients can be quite expensive. So thinking through how it is that we afford that, how families and patients afford that um is is a really important component of how we're going to take that scientific discovery, >> right, >> and get it to the point where more patients benefit. >> But it's not because it's precious, right? Um >> Dr. Latai, it's not that it's precious. It's not like there's a special little mushroom that only exists in one place in the world and that's why it's expensive. It's expensive because the companies allow it to be expensive. It's expensive because the companies disallow off label use and some on label use. >> I'm I'm not here to defend drug pricing. >> I'm glad you're not. That would be a very tough job for you. >> And it's not and it's not my business at National Cancer Institute. Our job is >> But you see it at the National Cancer Institute. >> We see we see it downstream, >> right? Um, but I want to make the point that the that the main reason people not all not not all but the vast majority of the cancer deaths that you see are not due to lack of access. And I'm not denying the problem of lack of access. The main reason people die of cancer is lack of effective treatments. And that's what we're in the business at the NCI of of figuring out. Now all the advances that we've made and we've heard great statistics those really demonstrate the benefit of investments in research and at the heart of every drug when you watch football game and you see Lily advertising a drug or Fizer advertising a drug you trace that back every single one of those started with an NCI grant. Okay? So the NCI is doing its job. when you see the 30% reduction in mortality, that's reflective of the American taxpayer investing in the National Cancer Institute and the results of that research. So that job is being done and we need to continue doing it. Just like what I sometimes think about is when we say why aren't we curing cancer? Sometimes as a biologist I sometimes like how on earth can we ever cure can any cancers? It's a miracle because in a way it's like taking a pill. Your body doesn't necessarily see a tumor as being totally different and it's like taking upon yourself the task of a pill that will get rid of your left kidney but not your right kidney. It's a very very difficult problem and sometimes it's wondrous that we can do it at all. Jay, how do you deal with the the kind of juxtiposition of what we are often told on the patient side when it comes to cancer that is unlike every other problem we face in life, right? We all know the the simple apherism. Uh what do you do as a strategy with a problem? You do everything. You throw everything at it. It doesn't seem like this system is set up that way that the testing takes a long time. uh and there's a lot of requirements and um there's not a lot of risk on that side and I get it. Well, you don't want to kill the patient, but what if the patient's going to die and they want to be able to try things and why aren't we just throwing everything at it, especially with the more severe cases? >> Because this is personal to me because my my wife is a is a is an oncologist. just every day she comes home and she talks about patients that are that are suffering and and um you know it's hard when you're a patient because you have you have this dead red dead red disease and you you don't know what's what's happening. You don't know how to how to how to actually manage it. Um the the the uh of course you mentioned the insurance systems that that is absolutely sometimes a problem. we people with inadequate insurance coverage don't don't can't get access um and and there's also uncertainty but I think the thing I want to emphasize is that uh the uh the when you're really really sick it's you're often quite vulnerable to to promises about things that are supposedly work and you don't know they're going to work the the reason why the NCI and and NIH has been successful is because we fund research that's rigorous so that we can get tell patients yes this works that yes this doesn't When I was a again back to when I was a medical student, um the big cancer advance was antioenesis. Every c like solid tumors, they they actually send out hormones that like make blood blood vessels. >> Jim Watson said it was going to cure cancer. >> That was the that was the bold claim made. And what happened to it, Jay? >> It didn't work. Um but actually, here's the funny thing. It works for macular degeneration. So ca cancer research actually resulted in a in a a really effective treatment that for disease that makes people go blind. >> I hear you. I want to take a break and I want to take a break on this question that we're going to consider when we come back and then we're going to bring in people who have lived it as a disease and want to talk about what it takes to survive this holistically because not just about the treatment. It's about your ability to pay for it and your ability to survive the battle to pay for it and get treatment. But there are things that we know could work that aren't allowed because we don't know enough yet. Where should that line be? How should you assess when it is a crisis? When it is an emergency, when it is life or death? Can you be too careful? We'll discuss next. Stay with us. >> Very well done. Everybody, welcome back to our special show that we're doing tonight, a special edition of Cuomo. Uh, that was, you know, it's just titled what the question is, why can't we cure cancer faster? A national conversation. Dr. Pat, hearing what is uh here and setting what you've been hearing so far tonight and setting it against what you know that we know about what works. Uh but we are not emphasizing. Marry the two for me. >> Well, it's more important than what we know what we know what works. I brought this tonight and I showed this for the first time to Jerry and Tony. This is a report done in 2007 by the National Cancer Institute. the FDA, the NHS, every scientific leader, thought leader in the United States that identified which molecules in your body would actually have the highest impact to cure cancer. The number one molecule ranked by every one of them was a molecule called interlucan 15. IL15. >> What is it? >> So what is IL15? 15N is the cytoine or molecule that stimulates the growth of T-C cells and NK cells in your body. The most important cell in your body that would kill cancer is NK cells and T- cells. So the National Cancer Institute and the thought leaders of the country have known for close to 20 years and exactly what Jay said, what you know is what you know. And it's been validated that the most important se um molecule in your body secreted by your body is 15 so that it can grow tea cells and natural killer cells. >> That's what we're showing on the screen right now. It looks a little bit like an egg being fertilized, but that's not what it is. This is your natural uh ENK cells uh going at tumors that Dr. Pat showed me at this amazing uh sound and multimedia stage that he has out in LA. So, all right. So, help me understand. I don't get it, Karen. If you know that this is what it is and the thing that came in number two on the list behind IL-15 has become like all the rage because some big pharma company has a big drug for it. Why isn't that the focus? >> Well, the science had to mature and the science had to get from the lab into clinical testing. And there are a lot of bottlenecks there that would be worth talking about. But what we know about amunotherapy now in 2026 is very different that we knew in 2027. And where we are, >> but they said it was number one in 2007. But where where we're entering right now is a phase where saying amunotherapy is going to be like saying teabanking. There's going to be some redundancy there. Literally all cancer therapies are going to have an a root in the immune system. Even what we think of right now as standard chemotherapy or radiation therapy and there have been approvals already in this space are being driven specifically to tumors like a smart bomb developed against an antibbody part you know an immune component >> that's directed against a protein decorating the surface of a cell. But what's curing people now like uh like advanced lung cancer, like bladder cancer, like melanoma are the kinds of amunotherapies that um that take away the tumor's ability to cloak itself from your immune system. That was one of there have been a couple of big unlocks. One is that cancers throw down a cloak so your own immune system can't see it. So there's a whole class of immune therapies called checkpoint inhibitors. They remove the cloak. That's how they work. And those are curative imunotherapies. A second is taking out your tea cells and training them to see your specific tumor and putting them back. That's given us a whole another class of curative therapies called cellbased therapies. Now add this immune component attaching you know your chemotherapy to make it go straight to a tumor, radiation therapy directly to a tumor or a whole series of other types of um te- cell modifiers if you will. But what we're seeing very rapidly in cancer is that's where the cures are actually coming from. The durable cures for anyone with complex disease. So I am very excited by what's happened since 2007 that's now gone into the phase of not just clinical testing but new approvals um in this space. And the more that we learn about uh how different tumors respond to amunotherapy, the better off we're going to be. The bottleneck is not that we don't have good ideas. It's that we can't get them off the lab floor and into patient testing because there's a large gap. That's where we sit in who owns that problem because the world has changed a little investors or industry will want to see a clinical signal. You've got a great idea here in the lab, Karen, but how do I know it's going to work when it gets to a patient? Who owns that? And where we where we lack is enough resource in my opinion in that space in order to derisk the science and show that it can actually have promise. And this this is what we do at the Parker Institute. Truly a model of one. >> Pat, what do you got? Yeah. And Jay, come on. Don't be polite. You're the man here. You're the head of the NIH. >> I mean, I just I I just want to brag about the NIH because that's exactly what we're trying to solve, right? So we have a a a hospital at the NIH where patients uh are come with often with advanced cancers and the ideas that are generated at the National Cancer Institute are tried out on those patients. I think not enough people know what Jay just said is that the National Cancer Institute although 75% of our budget funds cancer centers and other people all across the country we have in Bethesda our own hospital. It's not just a cancer hospital, but the biggest user of it is the National Cancer Institute, and that's where we do experimental uh earlyphase novel therapies. Every patient's on clinical trial and no one pays. So, having run one of those NCI designated cancer centers, one of the 73 that you talked about, and run oncology for a 16 hospital system across two states, I would wake up every day trying to determine how it is that we were going to lift up more phase one studies because in cancer that is the most advanced form of care and you want more people to have access to that. I think technology is going to help us get there, but at the end of the day, it's who's fun. Can I just respond to >> please >> for 10 years I've been working with the NCI in the crater with Jeffrey Schlom for 10 years we being the trials you you you sound as if you don't know that we've done hundreds of patients triple negative breast cancer Merkel cell carcinoma pancreatic cancer head and neck cancer which we're getting not only responses but complete responses >> I'm talking about the field at large I think tonight we're talking about isisle 15 >> I think this This is exactly what happens when we have get into these conversations about epidemiology big picture. We have patients and more importantly the science has actually identified this molecule called 15 that our body makes. The NIH to their credit has tried for a decade to actually make 15 work to stimulate ENK cells. I then with Jeffrey Schlom and with James Gully for 10 years have worked together in collaboration. >> So you're doing you're actually doing clinical trials with the NCI. The NCI is assisting you in doing clinical trials >> with Crater. In fact, Jeffrey said I'm okay to say this tonight. these two five-year reviews with the best that he's had at NCI because I've worked together on the on the aisle 15 that stimulates your natural killer cells that is shown to actually give complete response. So let me give you some information. We have patients with bladder cancer 10 years free still of cancer. Patient Merkel cell six years free didn't die of cancer. Patient metastatic pancreatic cancer seven years free did not die of pancreatic cancer. And we can go on. >> But here's the issue though. Okay, the and again you get you know the I think the helpful thing for you guys tonight is this is for the this is coming from the layman's perspective. All right. What do I hear all the time? Other countries do it faster. They have more treatments. You can get things there. Um pits, this is where you come in as the former FDA commissioner. The criticism is you guys are too rigorous uh in terms of Pat can't get it approved. You say he's got to do more trials. He says I have the data. You say no, you don't have the data. And then he says, "Yeah, but you were okay with it with this big company over here. Why do they have more leverage than I do when I'm do I have this research? It seems like the system picks favorites to win and lose and makes it too hard for some in something that's a crisis. What do I not understand? >> Money. You know, HL Min said, I paraphrase, um, for every complex problem, there's a simple solution that's wrong. And for years, that solution has been double the NIH budget. fund more money to the same people doing the same researchers research at big universities with enormous amounts of overhead. Wrong answer. That's gotten that's created another industry which is NIH funded research that is interesting and it helps people get tenure and get published but at the end of the day it doesn't lead anywhere. So the end result that is being aimed for is tenure or publisher perish. that needs to change and Jay and his folks to your credit really have begun to identify the fact that Chris you mentioned intramural research traditionally that means um academics working with the NIH now that's interesting but it's missing a whole third of the proposition why can't industry work with NIH and academics not just to get PhD thesis published and get people tenure but actually to get drugs to market now with respect to the people that have been funded by the NIH in the past. What they know about bringing a drug to market, manufacturing being the the most obvious point of their ignorance, is almost nothing. They never talk to the FDA. They don't work together. And I think it's really incumbent on uh the on on NIH and this and NCI for, you know, the the folks that you're you're granting saying, "Listen, we're not going to continue to write you guys checks to do the same things. You guys have to actually have a result. But I don't think it's this I don't think it's this part of this I don't think it's this part of the the train. The reason I was so excited to have you tonight is I think that the problem is when Pat gets to you is you know he has the research he's come through this these channels and then you it seems and not just Pitts he was the commissioner but he's good enough to be here tonight but go ahead Pat explain the situation. >> If I ask you a question former commissioner >> associate commissioner but thanks for the promotion. If we now have this results that we have now prolonged the survival of patient with lung cancer where there's nothing left for them to have they failed chemo failed radiation they failed checkpoints >> we take the patients that are progressing on checkpoints >> and add in case cell to that and all of a sudden we've tripled their survival would you now say it is ethical for me to do a randomized trial of that patient to say go get some more >> that's a great point because the problem inside the FDA in my opinion again it's easy to have these types of comments once you're outside the agency is that uh career staff at the FDA you underpaid and but highly motivated and very dedicated to their tasks are not always risktakers. In fact, oftentimes they are deterred by management at the FDA from taking risks from going outside the box to thinking differently Patrick to your point and that's got to change. I think you know Dr. McCary, the current FDA commissioner, has has a new article out on kind of new ways to do only one large trial versus two large trials. And that is a very significant paradigm shift in the way you think about drug regulation. But it starts with the review teams in the in the divisions. And unless they are empowered to do new things and make mistakes, it's never going to change. >> Just one more quick thing and then I want to go to break and we're going to come back and we're going to talk about this through the lens of people who've lived it and people who need help. and you guys represent answers on both those levels. Here's my question for you, Mr. Pittz, is uh you guys have created a solution. I don't know which one of you deserves the credit as an agency, even though Jay, you know, you're new doing this, so you shouldn't get too much blame at the NIH, but uh, okay, we may not be able to show that this drug, we're not crazy about Pat's testing enough to say you're going to be an on label choice for this, but we've created a a mechanism off label, and a doctor can prescribe Antiva for anybody he wants, for any cancer he wants, off label. The insurance companies don't allow it. How did you create that mechanism and not take away their power to make the choice for people if it's good enough for you to allow it off label? How can it be that they get to say no? >> Insurance companies have this all upside down. You know, a a patient that's being aggressively treated with new treatments, those are expensive patients and insurance companies are looking at after their bottom line, unfortunately, rather than what's best for patients. And you have to learn through getting people drugged with these new products to see how they work. FDA off label use is very clear. Once a drug is approved for any use, a doctor can prescribe it for any other use. However, as you mentioned, insurance companies say, "Well, maybe we'll reimburse it if it's on label. If it's off label, it's a complete crapshoot." And that is that is completely wrong. >> Why isn't that illegal? >> And it's well, certainly unethical relative to being illegal. That that needs to change because again, you have you have to follow the money. And if a drug is legal to be prescribed off label, it should be insurance companies must be highly motivated, shall we say, to aggressively reimburse those products. >> All right, let's take a break and then we'll come back and I want to hear from people here. Let them talk to you guys about what their experiences are and what they feel needs to change and what works. And I appreciate you all very much and I appreciate you at home for giving us a chance. We'll be right back. robust discussion. That's what we need more of in this country. Thank you for joining us for some of it tonight in a special edition of Cuomo. Why we can't Why can't we cure cancer faster? A national conversation. Okay, so we've been hearing from the pros. Uh, I've already learned a lot which is really good. I want to bring in some people who've lived the experience and who either know what it takes and what has to change or are desperate uh for something to change for them and both matter, right? So, uh, I want to bring in Aaliyah first. So, tell people your situation and what you need. >> I need to be at Raise the I need to be at Dr. Patrick's clinic. That's what I need because he has a logical answer for my problem which is rectile cancer that has metastasized to my liver and my immune system is not helping me and I need some help because right now chemotherapy does work for me but when I stop it I'm reattacked. So logically I need some extra tools in my tool chest to to help me fight and his is the only answer right now. Why does it have to be that he's the only answer with all these other treatments and studies? And what has been your experience in terms of getting that next level of health? >> My experience with my oncologists are are not very good because of the studies that I bring to them and their NIH and PubMed studies and I am laughed at and they say this is just a study. It's not reality and it's wrong. Uh there was a an ivormectin one uh that that for stem cells to do while you're do on treatment with chemotherapy to kill the stem cells in tumors and I was laughed at. So I kept on searching and searching and searching and I found Dr. Patrick and I just want his answer. You know his answer is the right. It's the logical one. It it's a tool in the chest that will help and no one else has given me that opportunity. So the reason that this is precious, this opportunity is because you have been stymied uh in the process of getting the trials and testing and data that the government uh entities want and you say it doesn't make any sense because you're being asked to do things that are unnecessary which is why you can't help more people. How so? >> So this is why I'm frustrated. The drug is approved and in the package insert validated by the FDA, it says this drug when you give it to a patient grows your T- cells and your ENK cells, which by the way is destroyed by the chemotherapy. So we can protect your immune system with ENK and T- cells. Even Jim Allison said yesterday, the Nobel laurate, TE- cells don't have an address. So I then completed the trials in patients with triple negative breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and showed that I prolonged the survival with just this injection of this antiva. We've gone to the FDA and said this is what you call single arm trials. Please give us an accelerated approval so that patient could have access to it. You did this for Merc when they had this number two product, the checkpoint inhibitor as a single arm trial for all tumor types. Why wouldn't you do that for us now? >> What they say? >> No, that where they said you have to take that same trial that you do, repeat it, but compare it to chemo. >> I said, well, that's not ethical. Am I going to tell my patient that here's the chemo that you failed already? I'm going to give you chemo again versus our drug. Okay, I will do that trial which I'm now already doing that randomized trial as a confirmatory trial that please allow access to the patients now based on the data that we've already completed which has taken me 10 years to complete. >> So how do you defend that pit? >> Well, I don't defend it. Let me I want to re reinforce what what Patrick is saying. when he called the pack the the package insert otherwise known as the label has in it science that discusses what the mechanism of action is and how it works. That is positive affirmation by one division inside the FDA as to the efficacy of this product and its meth and its MOA its methodology of action. When you go back to another division with the same product inside the FDA and they say go out and kill more rats, that is absolutely upside down. It's people covering their rear ends rather than learning from their own colleagues down the hole. >> Why did Merk get a different path? Or do you want to answer that? >> Well, I don't know about Merc. >> I didn't think so. But it's why does Merc get a different path? >> I don't know about Merc either, but you know they No, you know about Merc. They know who to talk. >> Everybody knows about Merc. Why did they get a different than he has to do? >> When you're a a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company, you >> is it really that simple that they just pick up the phone and be like, you know who we are, right? >> No. What what they do have is floors of people that understand the science in very subtle ways and how it's going to what what the most direct streamlined path will be to getting an FDA nod. Now that the FDA is being reconfigured and reaching out to Jay and the folks at NIH more aggressively, the theory is that everybody's going to play together as a team rather than being in their own little regulatory silos. >> And can I follow up on something that that Yes, you may say. So like the the um in in defense of the current version of the FDA, there's a there's a um a new way of thinking that Dr. McCary who's the head of the FDA commissioner of FDA has bought in of of uh of allowing plausible biological mechanisms as a way to get approval right just exactly as as was just said um and and what that means is that you don't have the extra steps now sometime it's you know it was just announced and so it's going to take a little while this week I think yeah just this week so it'll take a little while to go through >> like two days ago >> so I just want I just want people to understand the potential here okay Alina kid has uh joined us tonight and we got Jim Johnson. Uh so you got two people who are in this box where you guys are very familiar with this and it's the most frightening thing that people at home can imagine which is nothing has worked. Nothing has worked and there is a chance to try something that may or may not work. You don't know but nothing else has worked and Alina got to um Dr. Pat Alina tell people what your experience was. >> Hi so I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021. Mind you, my ex-husband was diagnosed in 2020 with the same cancer, but he ended up dying in 2023 because nothing will help. And so with me, when I was diagnosed, I was stage 3B and I had a colon resection. I had and they told me I didn't have to do chemo and whatnot. So I went on with my life and in 2023 when the cancer came back, it came back with a vengeance. And at this time, I had to find a different oncologist because the first one will not listen to me. And so I did three different rounds of chemo, radiation and multiple surgeries. And every time I I do surgeries or chemo, my numbers are okay. But 6 months, three months, the cancer kept coming back kept coming back. But I thank God that my oncologist was honest with me enough to refer me to Dr. Patrick. And he's he's a huge follower and a believe in Dr. Patrick. So he referred me to him. I did the application. I was seen there. I started seeing Dr. Patrick since August of last year. And since then my lymphosytes have increased. My white blood cells have increased. Not only that, I had severe inflammation from radiation that went away. I don't remember the last time I had a flu or cold. Even my allergies is helping me with so many great things. So thank you for doing God's work. you. I mean, my kids at least have one pair in. So, thank you. Thank you. >> And Jimmy, you had the same experience. Last time I saw you, you had no hair. Now, uh, >> a little snow on the mountain. >> It's coming. It's coming. It's coming back. Um, you broke my heart, but you put it back together telling me your story because you believed, and I don't want to badmouth doctors. My oldest sister is a doctor. 20 years ago, she wrote a book about how food is medicine to cure cancer. I mean, none of these ideas are new. It's just about throwing everything at the problem. And your doctors basically fired you as a patient because nothing had worked. >> Yeah. I mean, when you go back, I defer to the brilliant minds that are all here that study science. I'm just a lonely patient. You remember when you and I were young, you know, we used to do bloodletting for cancer. Okay. So, now we've advanced to radiation and chemo and that's pretty good. But we need to take that next step from bloodletting to radiation and chemo to immunologics. I had HPV 2015 radiated chemo got well. 7 years on 2022 I had uh my annual checkup. My liver enzymes were high. So my doctor sent me to get a sonogram of my liver. I had a massive tumor on my liver. It was 9 cm. Three weeks later, they took out a 12 cm tumor, the right lobe of my liver and my gallbladder because they were in there. I had uh since that time I went the traditional route. I had 66 chemo infusions last year, 20 radiations, immunologics, nothing worked. My doctors came to me and said, "There's nothing more we can do. Try to get in a clinical trial." I applied for half a dozen clinical trials, got rejected from each one because my cancer was so unusual it might skew their numbers. So I was left to determine my only chance here is to find somebody that was out there and I went to try to find the smartest people on the planet to tell my story. And to my great fortune, the one guy who could help me was running a clinical trial for HPV, squamous cell tumors and COVID vaccine. I had had four COVID vaccines. The last one I got was right before I was diagnosed. >> How are you now? >> I went in August. I had uh four months of uh treatments with doctor and uh I have no cancer in my body. >> I have no cancer in my body. >> You're looking at me because you think you're going to make me cry again. It's not happening again. >> I'm just telling you what happened is when I came out of my traditional radiation chemo, my ALTS and AS were skyhigh. Nobody even looked at my ALC, which were my lymphosytes. And when I went into Dr. Sunun Seang's clinic, they were looking at it and saying, "My goodness, look at this. >> We can fix you." And they did. In four months, I had gone through four years of torture. My body was ravaged from the cancer, from the chemo, and radiation. >> You look great now. >> Well, >> you do. You look great, man. >> For a guy that's >> You got your energy back. No, your eyes are different on your HPV levels. >> So, my HPV levels uh I have I I've been taking a genetic test uh every month for the whole four-year term. And for the last four treatments that I've been into the clinic, there's zero. Wow. >> There is there is zero. >> Now, there's another component we haven't discussed yet that I want to get to because we have someone who can speak uniquely to it and it's important for you to uh Jay to get her experience because not on your watch, but it's something you could deal with. So, um, Camille Brady is young, 23. She just told me that she graduated with Arbella from Cornell. Um, and boy, you've had an amazing and full life. I want you to explain to people what you learned about the political piece of this in your advocacy to help other people, other children who have cancer. You had a bill and you learned something about this process. What did you learn? Well, so this bill that luckily passed, you know, with the appropriations package in January of this year. >> And what does the bill do, Tom? >> Uh, it's called the Michaela Nalen Give Kids a Chance Act. And what it does is, you know, cuts that red tape that you mentioned before with the FDA and incentivizes drug companies to develop drugs for kids, kids with rare disease, kids with cancer, kids with life-threatening illness. And it renews a voucher program that's been very successful since 2007, I believe. And you know, kids with cancer, our treatments are outdated and they haven't been updated in nearly 50 years. The treatments I received as a two-time childhood cancer survivor were the same as those given to kids 50 years ago. And while they worked for me, they don't work for every patient. And Michaela Nen, the bill is named after her. She's someone I knew personally and the treatments didn't work for her. She passed away this past October and you know I wish there were other options for her. I still deal with the side effects of my treatments every day. I got chemotherapy and radiation and a very invasive limb salvage surgery that you know my tumor was removed but I have permanent nerve damage. I use a crutch to walk every day. Um, so you know, at the core, this bill incentivizes drug development for kids with cancer. And, you know, we just need better options. It's >> What did you learn about the political process getting in the way? >> The political process is interesting. I was a public policy major, so this was right up my alley. I sat in the House and Senate galleries when I watched this bill pass and then ultimately fail um when Senator Sanders objected to it. And that was a complete shock. He's a politician I look up to. >> Why did he object? >> He objected to it because the bill did not include things that he wanted. This bill did not require any funding from taxpayers. It wouldn't have cost the government anything. It was purely a regulatory bill and Senator Sanders wanted to add certain uh additional healthcare related aspects to the bill, amendments that would have cost the government money, >> competing agendas. So, let me ask you this as we as we wrap up tonight and I'll give you guys a chance to talk once we're done shooting. And I appreciate you for being here. >> Uh, and sharing experiences that we'd all like to forget, right? But people need to know. What do you take from it, Jay? >> First of all, you're an amazing person. I mean, it's and congratulations on getting that important bill through. Um, for this administration, the the president is really focused on childhood cancers. I s stood behind him as he signed an executive order doubling the uh the NIH investments in in childhood cancer and AI early detection and and treatment. Um it's a it's a huge problem because uh the the the agents that we use we we made so many advances in childhood cancer. We can cure acute lymphoplastic lymphoma which is the most common childhood cancer but but often the cure decades later may lead to your heart failure or lung lungs failing. I mean it it's so we need new approaches. Um and we are absolutely laser focused on trying to get those new approaches the NIH and the NCI. >> I'd like I'd like to circle back and leave this on a on a sort of a hopeful note and that is that you asked Patrick at the very beginning what do you see the most promise you said imotherapy Karen said imunotherapy. I agree and I think even if we don't focus on some of these very problematic details there are multiple technologies being brought to bear and we heard about some of them tonight. There's multiple technologies being brought to bear that are giving us signals in hard to treat cancers that we haven't been able to attack before because we are stimulating immune system by methods like this but also a variety of other methods take too long to get into. But I want I I do want to leave a message of hope that that is the sort of thing that really we are all working on and and and I do think that is going to help a lot in the future. >> I will say something that I don't want any of you to have to own and none of you to have to own but it has to be said. Um, the money in this system is a cancer in and of itself. And as long as you have an industry that is not only allowed to tell Congress whether or not it's allowed to negotiate with it, but it gets to determine whether or not your rule for what it can do is okay with it. This will never change. It will never change at the scale that we need it to change. We're done tonight. We're going to keep this conversation going, though. Dr. Pat, I promise you, we'll keep talking. I I promise you even though you own the Lakers, we'll still keep it going. Thank you for joining us tonight. Leland Vidder picks up our coverage. We'll continue this conversation. Thank you for being with us, Leland.