This month, Congress passed a stopgap funding bill that slashed a key Pentagon-backed medical research program by $859 million, roughly 57% of its total budget. Rather than specifying where those cuts should come from, lawmakers left it to the Department of Defense to decide. The Pentagon has now made its choice. Unfortunately, that choice is devastating -- and it must be reversed. Among the casualties is a critical research initiative focused on a rare genetic disease called neurofibromatosis (NF), which causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body.
If left unaddressed, this decision will be a costly mistake -- one whose price cannot be measured in dollars. The NF research program not only provides hope to families battling this devastating disease, but also stands as a model of government efficiency in medical research. It has delivered revolutionary medical breakthroughs at a fraction of the usual cost, making year-over-year progress that improves the lives of almost 170,000 Americans. Cutting this program threatens to erase years of hard-fought advances, but I remain hopeful that there is still time to reverse course.
There is no cure for NF. The disorder's tumors are complex and often lead to blindness, deafness, chronic pain, and even cancer. The only hope for families is continued research. I know firsthand what these families are facing: the uncertainty, the waiting, the desperate hope that medical breakthroughs will arrive before it is too late.
For decades, the Department of Defense has funded NF research partly because of its direct relevance to military medicine. Some NF research has implications for treating battlefield injuries like traumatic brain injuries and hearing loss, two of the most pressing medical challenges for service members. The NF research program has already helped deliver two FDA-approved drugs, more than 60 clinical trials, and medical insights that have advanced treatment for cancer, neurology, and orthopedics.
Now, the entire program -- a $25 million line item in the roughly $850 billion defense budget -- has been wiped out virtually overnight.
Private sector companies alone will not be able to fill the gap. Historically, rare diseases like NF have presented unique investment challenges due to their small patient populations and the complexities involved in developing treatments. That is precisely why the government stepped in to meet a need the market couldn't. And it has worked remarkably well. NF research has fueled discoveries that extend far beyond NF, delivering real returns on taxpayer dollars and keeping America at the forefront of rare disease research.
There's no question that government spending must be more efficient and results-driven than it has been historically. That is the purpose of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): to eliminate waste and ensure taxpayer dollars are well spent. I fully support this effort. But cuts to critical medical research should only happen, if at all, after a data-driven review identifying existing waste and inefficiency. So far, I've seen no evidence of either in the NF research program.
In fact, the Pentagon's NF research program is one of the most cost-effective investments of taxpayer dollars to date. The program has run clinical trials at a cost of approximately $1.4 million each -- a fraction of what it costs in the private sector and in other federally funded programs. Its integrated funding model maximizes every dollar, bringing federal agencies and private foundations together to accelerate progress toward treatments and, ultimately, a cure.
If these cuts stand and no alternative funding is allocated, the entire NF Clinical Trials Consortium will be on a path to shutting down. Ongoing trials, some of which involve children, will stop mid-course, leaving families who had pinned their hopes on these treatments with nowhere to turn. Top researchers will understandably move on to more stable opportunities in other, better-funded fields. And once they leave, it could take years to bring them back.
There is still time to fix this. Congress gave the Pentagon discretion over these cuts, and options remain to sustain NF research. Lawmakers and Pentagon leaders can look at reallocating existing resources, such as the recent $6 billion increase in the overall defense budget, to ensure this vital work continues.
The funding is already there. The results of NF research speak for themselves. With so much progress at stake, it is worth finding a way to keep this program alive, even as we work to make our government leaner and more efficient.
Gabriel Groisman is Chairman of the Children's Tumor Foundation, a leading medical research organization dedicated to funding research, raising awareness, and improving the lives of individuals affected by neurofibromatosis and schwannomatosis. He is the former Mayor of Bal Harbour, Florida and the Founder of Groisman, LLC.