Durbin Meets With His Guest, Dr. Sokol, Ahead of President Trump's Address To Joint Session Of Congress
Dr. Sokol, whose medical research on neuroblastoma has been jeopardized by Trump’s funding freeze, is a practicing oncologist and researcher from Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today met with his guest for President Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress, Dr. Elizabeth Sokol, a practicing oncologist and medical researcher at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Dr. Sokol specializes in treating children with neuroblastoma, the leading cause of cancer death for children aged one to five. Dr. Sokol is in the midst of conducting federally-supported clinical trials that are now being endangered by the Trump Administration’s devastating, and illegal, cuts to funding and resources at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Like Dr. Sokol, many NIH-funded researchers and institutions are facing an uncertain future because of President Trump and Elon Musk’s move to shut off critical research funding. Illinois universities and hospitals receive approximately $1.2 billion annually in NIH funding—which supports 14,000 jobs in the state and $3.5 billion in economic activity. Reports indicate that 1,200 NIH employees have been fired so far under President Trump and Musk’s direction—from experienced vaccine researchers and the next generation of scientists, to the Acting Director of the NIH’s Alzheimer’s and dementia program. Further, President Trump and Musk have reportedly ended a popular trainee program that brought 1,600 young scientists just out of college to the NIH’s world-renowned campus in Maryland to help run labs.
“President Trump and Elon Musk are carrying out an unprecedented and devastating campaign to cut research funding for cancers, ALS, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and infectious disease. NIH funding is why people are beating cancer, why babies are being spared from preventable illnesses, why HIV is no longer a death sentence, and why progress is being made on neurodegenerative diseases. There are millions of Americans impacted by these diseases, and any move to slash medical research funding will have long-term consequences for the health of our country,” Durbin said.
Durbin continued, “These haphazard decisions by President Trump have real, serious repercussions. Dr. Sokol, a pediatric oncologist and researcher at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, has dedicated more than a decade to the research and treatment of children suffering from neuroblastoma. Today, her research, which helps kids lead healthier lives after surviving cancer, is in jeopardy because of Donald Trump.”
Durbin concluded, “Additionally, plans by Congressional Republicans to slash Medicaid funding to pay for tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk mean that Lurie’s in Chicago and other children’s hospitals nationwide are facing devastating cuts to their lifesaving treatment for critically ill kids.”
“It’s an honor to be here representing pediatric researchers from Illinois,” said Dr. Sokol. “ As a physician-scientist at the bedside at one of our nation’s premier children’s research hospitals, I have witnessed firsthand how federally funded research—including the essential indirect costs that support it—has allowed for remarkable breakthroughs that help children faced with devastating diagnoses including childhood cancer. It is critically important to have congressional leaders such as Senator Durbin working hard to protect NIH funding including indirect costs, which are vital for sustaining the scientific and clinical research infrastructure. These costs help researchers translate basic discoveries into new treatments and cures for children, who have their whole lives ahead of them.”
Photos of the meeting can be found here.
B-roll for TV stations can be found here.
Last week, Durbin asked for unanimous consent (UC) to pass a resolution he introduced with U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), as well as 21 other Senators, that would pledge support for NIH. The resolution simply said that the work of NIH should not be subject to interruption, delay, or funding disruptions in violation of the law, and it reaffirmed that the NIH workforce is essential to sustaining medical progress. U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) rejected Durbin’s UC request.
Durbin has long been a strong advocate for robust medical research. His legislation, the American Cures Act, would provide annual budget increases of five percent plus inflation at America’s top four biomedical research agencies: NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense Health Program, and the Veterans Medical and Prosthetics Research Program. Thanks to Durbin’s efforts to increase medical research funding, Congress has provided NIH with a 60 percent funding increase over the past decade.
Congressional Republicans have proposed deep cuts to Medicaid to fund their budget reconciliation bill, with the House Republican budget resolution calling for $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid. 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 received her medical degree from the University of Illinois School of Medicine in 2007, prior to completing her Pediatrics residency at the University of Chicago/Comer Children's Hospital. She completed a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology in 2017 before completing a post-doctoral program in clinical pharmacology and pharmacogenomics in 2018 at University of Chicago. Dr. Sokol subsequently became a member of the Pediatric Hematology/Oncology division at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago in September 2018.
Dr. Sokol’s research interests involve the study of pediatric patients with neuroblastoma. As a member of the Children’s Oncology Group’s Neuroblastoma Committee, she participates in the development of new therapeutic clinical trials for patients with high-risk disease. She serves as the Children’s Oncology Group Pediatric Early Phase Clinical Trial Network site PI, bringing early phase trial opportunities to patients with relapsed or refractory disease. In addition, Dr. Sokol has worked with the Lurie Children’s pharmacogenomic steering committee to increase utilization of pharmacogenomic testing to optimize drug utilization for patients with complex pharmacology needs.
Dr. Sokol’s clinical focus centers on the treatment of pediatric solid tumor patients, including those with neuroblastoma, sarcomas, rare tumors, renal tumors, liver tumors, and germ cell tumors. Through her work with the Children’s Oncology Group’s Neuroblastoma Committee, she participates in the development of new therapeutic clinical trials for neuroblastoma patients.
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