RFK Jr. Faces Backlash Over FDA Rejection of Lifesaving Cancer Drug

President Trump’s Food and Drug Administration has decided not to approve a skin cancer treatment that could save lives, drawing backlash from doctors.

On Wednesday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Congress that he had nothing to do with the decision to withhold approval for Replimune’s drug, RP1, which treats melanoma, shifting responsibility to FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.  

“This decision comes out of FDA, and we trust ​the process there. And I’ve been told by Marty Makary that every panel that looked at that drug unanimously voted against it … because it does not appear to work,” Kennedy said to the Senate Finance Committee. 

This is disputed by many oncologists, who pointed out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week that an initial panel approved the drug before being overruled by the head of biologics, Dr. Vinay Prasad. They also disputed Kennedy’s claim at a House hearing last week that Replimune did a “one arm trial, and all the people who were tested also received a chemotherapy drug, so we don’t know what the effect was.” 

In reality, none of the patients in the trial received chemotherapy; instead they received a different form of immunotherapy, the oncologists noted. A longtime melanoma researcher who worked on the trial, Dr. Anna Pavlick, told the Journal, “Honestly, there was no doubt in our minds whatsoever when we completed this study and we saw the results, that this was going to be approved as a wonderful alternative for our patients because they have no options.

“I have patients who have been treated with this drug that are still alive today who would otherwise be dead,” Pavlick added. 

Dr. Eric Whitman of the Atlantic Health System Cancer Care backed up Pavlick’s statement. 

“When you talk to the melanoma experts, people who treat lots and lots of melanoma patients like myself, it’s obvious that this is beneficial to patients and it’s saving lives or it has potential to save lives,” Whitman said. “The community of patients and doctors don’t understand the reasoning” for the FDA’s rejection. 

Under Kennedy’s leadership, HHS has made several questionable decisions to hurt public health, including blocking a Centers for Disease Control study showing that the Covid-19 vaccine significantly reduced emergency room visits and hospitalizations this past winter. RP1 shows significant potential in combating a fatal cancer, and its rejection fits into a shocking pattern of decisions from the Trump administration that seem to encourage the spread of cancer.  

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson wouldn’t back up President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme Wednesday after it backfired and gave Democrats a boost.

Virginians voted Tuesday to redraw their state’s congressional district map, potentially netting Democrats an additional three to four seats in the November midterm elections. The success of the measure could potentially see Democrats seize an edge over Republicans’ own gerrymandering efforts in red states, and MAGA is already flipping its lid.

Asked the morning after whether he felt the mid-decade redistricting effort was worth it, Hudson replied: “Not for me to decide that, wasn’t my decision,” Punchbowl News reported.

Hudson doesn’t seem interested in taking credit for his party’s political gamble. The North Carolina lawmaker appeared hopeful that Virginia’s Supreme Court will weigh in on a case against the new measure, in which the NRCC is a plaintiff.

“This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander,” Hudson said in a separate statement. “That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”

So far, five red states—Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio, and Utah—have moved to redraw their congressional maps at the president’s behest in order to hand a potential nine additional seats to the Republican Party.

President Trump is once again alleging voter fraud—this time, after his gerrymandering defeat in Virginia.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday afternoon. “Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory! Six to five goes to ten to one, and yet the Presidential Election in November was very close to a 50-50 split.”

The president also made time to deride the way the referendum question was written.

“In addition to everything else, the language on the Referendum was purposefully unintelligible and deceptive,” he continued. “As everyone knows, I am an extraordinarily brilliant person, and even I had no idea what the hell they were talking about in the Referendum, and neither do they! Let’s see if the Courts will fix this travesty of ‘Justice.’”

Virginians voted 51–49 on Tuesday to redraw their state’s congressional map. The approved ballot measure could give Democrats as many as four additional seats in the House of Representatives. Like Trump wrote, that could mean that Democrats have a real chance of taking 10 of Virginia’s 11 House seats come November.

But there is no proof of voter fraud. And this entire effort was kickstarted last year when Trump himself started asking red states to gerrymander to help him overcome what looks like an incoming midterm defeat. The president claimed that Texas Republicans were “entitled to five more seats.” They obliged, and soon, Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio all capitulated. Now Virginia, like California, has responded. And Trump has a problem.

It will be a long time before the Strait of Hormuz is back to business as usual.

A Pentagon assessment shared with lawmakers Tuesday revealed that it could take six months for the vital oil tradeway to be fully cleared of the mines planted by the Iranian military, according to officials that spoke with The Washington Post.

It’s unlikely, however, that any mine-sweeping operation will take place without a peace agreement and an official end to the Iran war—a possibility that could very well drag the current economic woes into the back half of the year or beyond.

That could have serious implications for Republicans come November: Most Americans do not approve of the war, with 41 percent of the country in doubt as to whether Donald Trump even has a plan for ending the conflict, according to a Politico survey published last week.

The unpopular war has also ripped the MAGA movement right down the middle. Several major far-right media personalities—such as Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones—have outright disavowed the president and his approach to foreign policy since the war began, arguing that Trump backtracked on his former platform and campaign promises. Trump has rebuked his former acolytes in response, directly attacking them on social media and reposting content that demands they “shut the fuck up.”

By Wednesday, the majority of the voting public said that the House should impeach Trump, including one in five of his own supporters, according to a poll by Strength in Numbers.

But the rejection is not entirely unexpected. The war in Iran has thrust the entire world into an energy crisis, spiking oil and gas prices, stalling trade, and tanking economies. Last month, the cost of Brent crude, a global oil benchmark, reached a high of $108 per barrel—a dramatic increase from before the war started in late February, when Brent crude cost around $65 a barrel. At the time of publication, the cost per barrel was hovering around $101.

It is not clear exactly what the war in Iran has accomplished. Trump has previously stated that his primary objective in the war was to erase Iran’s nuclear capabilities—but his administration’s battle assessments have stood in contrast to other attacks they boasted about as recently as last year.

Prior to the war—which never obtained congressional approval—Trump ordered strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear sites, hitting Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan on June 22. At the time, the Trump administration claimed that the one-off air raid had set Iran’s program back by “years.”

Former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent sparked a maelstrom in Washington when he resigned over the issue last month. Kent argued in his resignation letter that he could not “in good conscience” support the war in Iran. “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” he wrote at the time.

In the seven weeks since the war began, the U.S. and Israel have killed thousands of Iranian civilians and obliterated Iranian civilian infrastructure. Meanwhile, 13 U.S. soldiers have died.

Trump extended the ceasefire between the two nations Wednesday, promising to hold off on the violence until Tehran was able to offer a formal peace proposal. Shortly afterward, Iran’s top negotiator said that it was “not possible to reopen the Strait of Hormuz” due to “blatant violations” of the ceasefire, specifying the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and “warmongering” by Israel “on all fronts.”

Democratic Representative David Scott of Georgia has passed away at the age of 80.

Scott has spent 50 years in politics, and was set to run for a 13th term in George’s 13th congressional district this year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, despite a visible decline in his mental acuity.

One of his primary opponents, Georgia state Representative Dr. Jasmine Clark, discovered last November through a public records request that Scott has not voted in the past six consecutive elections, including the 2024 presidential election.

“Our right to vote is sacred and constantly under attack. I cannot fathom any elected official asking his constituents for their votes every two years without even bothering to go vote himself,” Clark posted on X at the time, claiming that Scott wasn’t even a resident of the district.

There have been other signs of concern. In February of last year, Scott gave a long, incoherent speech about tariffs on the House floor before his microphone was cut off. In December 2024, just after he was reelected, Scott cursed at a photographer for taking his picture while being pushed in a wheelchair outside of the Capitol.

Scott’s mental and physical state was well-known on Capitol Hill, and his decision to run again in 2024 shocked colleagues, staff, and lobbyists. Many of them told Politico in February of that year that the then-ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee had issues with detailed conversations and often had to rely on a script.

Scott is the fourth Democratic member of Congress to pass away since the beginning of Trump’s term, joining Representatives Gerry Connolly, Sylvester Turner, and Raúl Grijalva. All of them were over the age of 70 representing safe Democratic districts.

This story has been updated.