Hope on Hold: DIPG Families Fight for Trials Amid U.S. Funding Cuts
A Guardian feature follows Izzy, a four-year-old with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), and the families and doctors racing to find experimental treatments as the Trump era’s funding cuts cripple NIH support, shutter the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, and suspend or delay dozens of clinical trials. The result is that progress in DIPG research stalls just as families face a last-hope window, turning access to new therapies into a bureaucratic and political obstacle. In the end, Izzy receives a reprieve when Stanford offers a CAR-T cell trial, a glimmer of hope amid a landscape of lost trials and dwindling resources.
