Government Shutdown Killing People?

The government shutdown might have seemed like a silly fight between the Republican and Democratic parties, but could possibly be something deadly. Other than parks and many other national parks being shut down, clinical trials are also being put on hold, which is very bad news for the thousands of sick patients holding on to their last strand of hope. Many cancer patients and other sick patients with various diseases hope to find refuge in new and hopefully successful drugs that have been tested and found to work towards their own type of health problem. These drugs are still in phases where they are being tested but have been found successful, and to these people who mostly have little to no treatment options, they can only pray that this will be the cure, and it quite possibly could. Weekly, hundreds of patients are admitted into these facilities run by the National Institute of Health. According to NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, over one-third of the patients accepted in their clinic are cancer patients, and about 15% being children. About 15,000 employees of the NIH(National Institute of Health) are on a temporary leave as well. Numerous studies would have began this week, but due to this ridiculous shutdown, people must wait before once again receiving government funding to run these life-saving programs.

I believe that this is certainly absurd, and can not imagine how the families of these people are feeling. The government should stop this nonsense and agree with the other party about these things before things get worse, because ignorance should not have to be payed with these innocent lives. Furious cannot even begin to describe how much hate must go towards the government at this crucial time. Would you like to know that what you are doing could be taking lives away? Especially as one of the main concerns being talked about during the shutdown is funding for Obamacare, which is directed towards giving everyone the benefits of healthcare. Although some of these treatments could possibly be a failure, most of the people willing to apply for these clinical trials don’t have much of a choice in front of them. Most have already gone through countless doses of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and much more pain. It would be very possible that they realistically had months, even days to live. Now with the government shutting down, they are being denied treatments when they most need it, for people that are battling cancer that have no time to spare and early treatment can save millions of lives. These days with the government shutdown, people in need of miracle may just not be able to get one, and who is to blame?

~Annie

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