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Bulwark Takes

IT HAPPENED! Pediatric Cancer Bill To Become Law

Bulwark Takes

The Bulwark

News, Society & Culture, Politics, News Commentary

4.71.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2026

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Stein gives his take on the good news out of Congress. After years of inexplicable delays, political dysfunction, and gut-wrenching defeats, the Give Kids a Chance Act has finally passed and is set to become law. The bipartisan bill will expand pediatric cancer research by allowing the FDA to study combination drug therapies, opening new funding streams, and cutting bureaucratic red tape that has long slowed progress for kids with cancer. Sam walks through how this widely supported legislation was repeatedly sidelined, including Elon Musk’s intervention, Senate procedural roadblocks, and last-minute objections that left families and advocates devastated.

In the New Year, take ownership of your health with ZocDoc, at https://ZocDoc.com/BULWARKTAKES.

Read Sam's article about the pediatric cancer bill: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/pediatric-cancer-bill-elon-rand-bernie-mikaela-naylon

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bullwork, and I am here on Tuesday afternoon.

0:06.6

I'm going to be talking about something that I've talked about a couple times with you all.

0:12.3

A bill that's been something that I've taken on as a hobby horse in terms of my coverage that I've written about several times, and that's kind of been central to a few of

0:22.2

these videos that we've done. It's called the Give Kids a Chance Act. You might remember this

0:27.4

is sort of a monumental piece of pediatric cancer legislation. It's been considered by Congress

0:33.2

at several junctures throughout the past 13 or so months.

0:40.8

And for some reason or other, it has never passed.

0:46.4

It's had these gut-wrenching awful defeats, sometimes inexplicable defeats,

0:51.6

despite being like the third most co-sponsored bill in Congress with no one actually objecting to it.

0:53.8

It never made it into law. And then. It never made it into law.

0:57.2

And then today, it made it into law.

0:58.5

It actually passed.

1:06.3

And as I am doing this, the bill is likely to be signed into law by President Trump.

1:12.3

It's a pretty remarkable moment in this field of pediatric cancer research.

1:15.8

And I want to take a moment to reflect on it.

1:18.0

So you might be saying, well, what does the bill do?

1:20.5

I'm not a doctor.

1:21.3

I'm not a scientist.

1:24.8

I've confessed that on these programs before.

1:30.8

But this bill would allow for the study of combination drug therapies for kids suffering with cancer right now. That's really not an option for many of these kids. This would

1:35.5

make it so that the FDA would allow for those combination drug therapy treatments to be studied.

1:41.5

In addition, it would open up some funnels of money for pediatric cancer research,

...

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