Bernie Sanders Blocks Lifesaving Pediatric Cancer Bill

In one of the most heartless political maneuvers in recent memory, Senator Bernie Sanders singlehandedly killed a bipartisan pediatric cancer bill that could have saved countless young lives and he did it just days before Christmas.

The Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act, named after a 16-year-old cancer patient who spent her final days lobbying Congress from her deathbed, would have empowered the FDA to require drug companies to study combination therapies for pediatric cancers a change advocates had fought for over a decade. The bill had already passed the House unanimously and was poised to clear the Senate in the same fashion.

Until Sanders stood in the way. “He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), who championed the bill.

This wasn’t a bill loaded with pork or partisan pet projects. It was focused, targeted legislation with a single aim helping children with cancer access better treatments faster. That’s it. But Sanders, playing procedural hardball, objected to unanimous consent effectively derailing the entire effort in one fell swoop.

And his reason? He wanted other unrelated health care policies and funding for community health centers tied to the bill. In other words, he held dying kids hostage to leverage his own agenda.

The human cost of that decision is devastating.

• Mikaela Naylon, the teen whose name graced the bill, had already undergone leg amputation, lung surgeries, radiation, and more. When her doctors told her she had only weeks left, she spent those final days begging senators to act.

• On October 29, just hours before she passed away, Mikaela spoke to Sen. John Hickenlooper via Zoom, too weak to speak without her parents’ help.

• After her death, the bill was renamed in her honor and even that wasn’t enough to move Sanders.

Let that sink in: A dying teenager did more to pass this bill than a sitting senator who claims to champion the vulnerable.

This wasn’t just political malpractice it was moral failure. Every single senator was ready to vote yes. The families were in the gallery. The votes were there. The president was waiting to sign it.

And Bernie Sanders stood alone to say “no.”

He didn’t oppose the bill’s content. He didn’t argue it was bad policy. He simply demanded more. And in doing so, he ensured that the perfect became the enemy of the good, and that children with cancer the most innocent among us were left behind.

It’s the kind of cold, ideological obstruction that makes everyday Americans lose faith in politics altogether. When a senator is more committed to posturing than to helping dying kids, the system is broken.

The Senate has now left town for the holidays. The bill is dead. The children it could have helped the ones who don’t have time for endless Senate debates are still waiting.

History will remember that when Bernie Sanders had a chance to deliver hope, he chose political leverage over human life.

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