Young Woman Battling Cancer Issues Powerful Thanks to Trump: 'My Good Samaritan'
A woman who battled cancer and despair this week praised President Donald Trump for giving her the chance to live when the medical establishment gave her no options other than death.
Natalie Harp spoke briefly at Wednesday’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. She was fighting stage 2 bone cancer when a medical mistake that took place in 2015 left her wheelchair-bound. Her condition worsened until, by virtue of the Right to Try legislation Trump signed, she was able to try an FDA-approved drug for a non-approved use. The drug has helped her fight back.
During her remarks, Harp — now able to walk — praised Trump for giving those who want to live a chance to try anything that will give them a fighting chance.
“You know, we all know the story about the good Samaritan. What you don’t know is that I was that forgotten person on the side of the road,” Harp said.
“First, the medical establishment, they came by and they saw me there. So they wrote prescriptions for opioids and they walked on.
“Next, the political establishment, they saw me there. They stopped just long enough to come over and tell me how to die, how to speed up my death so I could somehow die with dignity,” she said.
“But then an outsider, my good Samaritan, President Donald J. Trump, he saw me there and he didn’t walk by. He stopped. And for every single one of us, he gave up his own quality of life so we could live and work and fight with dignity because he believes in survival of the fighters, not the fittest,” she said.
“So Mr. President, I have to say, you have made a lot of promises to us and you have kept every one of them. So now we are going to make you this promise: Just as you fought for us, forgotten America will never forget how you saw us on the side of the road and you walked over and you picked us up and you made us great again. Now we are going to fight for you, Mr. President. God bless you,” she said.
Trump said that prior to her alternative treatment, Harp “was in a wheelchair. She was in bed. And they showed them, and it was so incredible. And they were, actually, preparing her for death. And because of Right to Try, they had a medicine that wouldn’t have been approved for years, but it was very, very — it’s looking good.”
Trump said drug companies fought the Right to Try law because they did not want their drugs on record as being linked to the deaths of terminally ill people who took them in non-approved ways and ended up dying anyhow.
“We made a second record that people don’t see. You know it’s unfair to them but they didn’t want it on their record because people were very far along, unfortunately,” Trump said.
“But cases like Natalie have not even been that unique. We have saved many lives with what is going on. But also I guess that is probably also the best test for the medicine to see whether or not it is good. It has worked so well and we are so proud of it.”
Harp expanded on her comments in a post on LinkedIn.
“Yesterday Vice President Joe Biden promised to cure cancer but only if elected President As a Millennial woman, a demographic the Democrats take for granted, I actually have cancer. And I want to know: If Joe Biden can promise to cure cancer, why didn’t he do so while Senator for 36 years or Vice President for eight? And why did medical error — which primarily impacts people with pre-existing conditions — become the third leading cause of death in the U.S. under the Obama Administration?” she wrote.
Harp said the medical establishment failed her.
“On November 9, 2015 — a year to the day Donald Trump would win the presidency — a nurse mixed up my IV with the deadly substance of sterile water leaving me housebound and searching for care.
“Instead of studying my symptoms to diagnose my condition, my Democrat-controlled state and country offered me opioids, barbiturates, medical marijuana, disability, Do-Not-Resuscitate orders, and yes, Death With Dignity. Before one appointment, I was even instructed in the voluntary stopping of eating and drinking (VSED),” she wrote.
“According to the Democrats, healthcare is a right. But a right to what — all of the above? No, thank you. Donald Trump would change a letter of that. Healthcare is a fight,” she wrote.
“When I failed the two available chemotherapies for my rare disease and was denied from clinical trials, my oncologist said I would have to suffer through the symptoms for several more months on a failed chemotherapy while awaiting a new round of FDA-approvals for the clinical trial drugs to which I was denied access.
“Donald Trump had another option ready: Right to Try. While some may argue that this legislation has not benefited the terminally ill or was repetitive to existing law, I beg to differ. My oncologist didn’t tell me I had other options. Donald Trump did.
“So I found another oncologist who was willing to try a different approach—an FDA-approved immunotherapy drug for an unapproved use. Now my numbers are stabilizing and so is my pain,” she wrote.
“So I ask you: Who has delivered more for people with pre-existing conditions? Joe Biden in over four decades or Donald Trump in just over two years?” she wrote.
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