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⛅Foggy morning, cloudy day, with highs in the 70s. Sunset is at 6:49 p.m.
Kate Weissman, from Natick, went to Washington, D.C., yesterday with a message: “I’m alive because of cancer research funding.”
Weissman was diagnosed with cervical cancer 10 years ago, at age 30, she told GBH’s Sarah Betancourt. Getting to remission took surgery, 55 rounds of radiation and 17 rounds of chemotherapy — a process that was financially, physically and emotionally straining, she said.
Weissman said she worries about the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and hopes members of Congress will vote to reverse them. The American Cancer Society estimates that federally-funded research into cancer has led to a 34% decline in cancer deaths in the last 30 years.
“I came out of the disease with so much more knowledge and understanding and empathy for what this disease does to families,” she said. “The research happens in our backyard. It happens in Cambridge. We have the access to the brightest minds in this world, but if they do not have the funding, they cannot do their jobs and they cannot find cures.”
Four Things to Know
1. Activist and Boston mayoral candidate Domingos DaRosa, who came in third in last week’s preliminary election, is asking for a recount. DaRosa received 2,409 votes, about 2.6% of votes cast and roughly 600 shy of the 3,000 required to advance to the November ballot following second-place finisher Josh Kraft’s exit from the race.
He said the recount petition is largely symbolic, intended to highlight how public attention and media coverage in the race focused primarily on incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu and Kraft, who self-financed much of his campaign before dropping out last week. “We have an incumbent who is gonna have a general election without a challenger,” DaRosa told GBH’s Saraya Wintersmith. “Folks feel like they’ve been short-changed because of the lack of equality when it came to having candidates promoted on a fair playing field.”
2. Attorney General Andrea Campbell said her office is “preparing for everything” when considering federal threats to voting rights in the 2026 midterm elections.
“A lot of the election work we’re doing, particularly standing up for early voting, mail-in voting, which we have here in Massachusetts, we’re actually supporting other states where this is under threat,” Campbell said, responding to a question from GBH Daily reader Debbie on Boston Public Radio. “Stand in line, mobilize more people, to make it crystal clear that regardless of what they bring at us, they will never be able to squash our democracy.”
3. About 72% of Jewish Americans surveyed said they believe President Donald Trump is using concerns about antisemitism as a pretext to cut funding for colleges and universities — not because he genuinely cares about protecting Jewish students — according to a survey conducted by the University of Rochester, the University of California and Ipsos. That opinion varied across Jewish-American communities, with conservative and Orthodox Jews evenly split.
“We thought it was important to understand if the group that is most directly being invoked in that rationale, what they think about that rationale,” University of Rochester Prof. Jamie Druckman told GBH’s Kirk Carapezza. “The overwhelming majority of Jewish respondents felt that antisemitism was being used as an excuse rather than as an authentic rationale to protect Jewish students.”
4. The New England Revolution fired its coach, Caleb Porter, with four games left in the season yesterday. Porter has been leading the team since late 2023. Assistant coach Pablo Moreira will take over his role for now.
The team is ranked 11th out of 15 in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference and is not on track to make the playoffs. They’ve had eight wins, 14 losses, and 8 ties this season.
Morphine shortage impacts Massachusetts patients, hospice care and pharmacies
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reporting shortages of certain types of morphine, the powerful opioid sometimes prescribed to cancer patients and those nearing the end of life. Pharmacists and hospice workers in Massachusetts said they’re seeing it too.
“We do have quite a few patients that we service that reside at assisted living facilities that we usually provide morphine in pre-filled syringes, and we are not able to get that medication,” Dina Breger, pharmacy manager at Greater Boston Long Term Care Pharmacy in Walpole, told GBH’s Marilyn Schairer. “It’s the end-of-life medication and clearly they need it for pain.”
The shortage is “being managed,” said Christine McMichael, executive director of Hospice and Palliative Care Federation of Massachusetts.
So why would people have a hard time getting a medication that’s been around for a long time?
“In the generic industry, these are notoriously thin margins,” University of Baltimore Prof. Alan Lyles, who studies drug shortages, told Schairer. “And if you look, there are many generic medications that are approved to be manufactured, but that industries are not induced to do that because there’s such a low profit in that.”
Another possible issue: the general supply chain disruptions and uncertainty over tariffs could make manufacturers slower.
Lyles said there are things governments can do to help: a study of Finland’s practice of keeping a national reserve of certain medications has made shortages more rare and disruptions shorter.
But in the meantime, if you are a caregiver or loved one of someone who has been prescribed morphine, it may be worth having a conversation with health care providers about it.
“Reach out to your pharmacist and health care provider,” Lyles said. “Express your concern and ask what their plan is for you or if you are adequately going to be able to meet your needs with morphine.”
Read Marilyn Schairer’s full story here.
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