In The Headlines: George Weiner on the importance of patients’ stories

In last week’s issue of The Cancer Letter, the cover story featured Col. Susan Fondy, an Army veteran and stage 3 breast cancer survivor, who is now living with lymphedema. Fondy is now a lymphedema advocate, working to prevent further cuts to the already-sparse funding for the disease.

Fondy’s story is the first of many The Cancer Letter plans to publish in order to highlight the human impact of the current administration's sweeping cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, welcome a special guest, George J. Weiner, to talk about the importance of telling stories when trying to communicate the importance of cancer research funding to the public.

“We have to be better storytellers,” Weiner said. “Again, we tend to want to just present the facts, and let the listener put the facts together into the story. We need to be telling that story from beginning to end more clearly.”

Weiner is the CE Block Chair of Cancer Research and director emeritus of the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, as well as a professor of internal medicine-hematology, oncology, and blood & marrow transplantation and professor of pharmaceutical sciences and experimental therapeutics.

“We really need to partner with our patients and the public on this,” Weiner said. “The public doesn't care about indirect costs. They don't care about pay lines. They don't care about whether someone gets a promotion or not. What they care about is whether the research we're doing is going to help their lives, and help the lives of their children and their grandchildren. And that's what we need to focus on when we're communicating with the public.”

Stories mentioned in this podcast include:

• She flew Black Hawks and battled cancer—now Col. Susan Fondy grapples with cuts to lymphedema research 

• As cancer scientists, we must change how we engage with the public on the impact of NIH cuts What the scientific method obscures

• In weekly vigils, current and former NIH staff grieve the impact of Trump cuts The Saturday gatherings at NIH’s Metro station are part graveside service, part street theater 

• Congress passes Trump’s megabill featuring historically steep Medicaid cuts   

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250709-george-weiner/