At Two, the Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act is Hampering the Fight Against Cancer
Saturday’s National Non-Profit Day acknowledged the vital contributions of non-profit organizations to the nation and its economy through advocacy, resources, and education and prevention.
The irony is that it comes one day after the second anniversary of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), for which Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote. The IRA never reduced inflation (that wasn’t even the intention) but spent $1 trillion on inflationary radical green agenda items.
Even worse, the Biden-Harris IRA is hampering nonprofits from doing the good work of healing Americans.
The story of Blue Faery
One non-profit organization making a difference is Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. Andrea Wilson Woods, the founder and CEO, is among the small group of women who run a non-profit. While women comprise 75% of the non-profit workforce, only 22% spearheads the direction and decision-making of the organization.
The story behind Blue Faery is heart-wrenching, as well as hope-filled.
“I started Blue Fairy in late 2002 in memory of my sister Adrienne Wilson. I was 22 years old when I got custody of Adrienne, and she was eight,” Wilson Woods explained in a phone interview. “I raised Adrienne all through my 20s, until she was very unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer one month after her 15th birthday. That was in May of 2001. She lived 147 days.”
Wilson Woods was only 29 years old when Adrienne passed away, and the death gutted her.
“I was looking for a way to channel my grief, and I reached out to the largest liver disease organization in the U.S. and offered to create a program for them on liver cancer because I could see the trajectory and where it was going. They said, ‘No, thank you.’ So, I …did my research and there wasn’t a single organization in the U.S. doing anything in what’s called the Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)—or primary liver cancer. I knew something had to be done, so that’s how I started Blue Faery.”
The color blue was Adrienne’s favorite, so much so that when Adrienne was 14, Andrea allowed her to dye her hair blue. When Adrienne lost her hair as a result of the chemotherapy, she bought a blue wig, along with blue butterfly wings. “We started calling her our Blue Faery,” Wilson Woods said.
Blue Faery’s mission is to use research, education, and advocacy to prevent, treat, and cure primary liver cancer, specifically HCC.
“It was never my life dream to start a non-profit,” Wilson Woods said. But because of her passion, lives have been strengthened and lengthened—and some saved—with education, early diagnosis, and expanded treatment options. Blue Faery has also grown in scope: from Wilson Woods and a handful of volunteers to four full-time employees (three of them women). As of 2023, Blue Faery brought in one million in revenue.
How the government hampers instead of helps
As Patrice Onwuka wrote in 2023 on the first anniversary of the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act:
“Through the deceptively marketed plan, the president exposed that his only priority has ever been enacting a radical and elitist green agenda. Meanwhile, hardworking poor and middle-class Americans are left to tread water as inflation sinks households deeper into financial trouble.”
We are two years into the act, and it’s not just hard-working Americans, but hardworking non-profit leaders like Wilson Woods who continue to suffer under this regulatory scheme.
“The Inflation Reduction Act had a major negative impact on, I would say, all of our corporate funders,” Wilson Woods confirmed.
“In every case that I can think of, and these are both mid-sized and large pharmaceutical biotech companies, [they were given] a carbon footprint assignment. And once you maxed out, it didn’t matter if traveling was actually really beneficial and you needed to be at a conference, you couldn’t go.
The major conferences for most of the cancer funding, including liver cancer, happen in October and November, toward the end of the year. However, if a company’s staff has surpassed their carbon footprint, they are restricted from travel.
“So, what ends up happening at this time of year is a lot of people that I really need to meet with, their carbon footprints are too high, and they’re not allowed to travel at all.”
This over-regulation to cater to a green agenda that serves no real purpose, it has resulted in slashed funding for organizations like Blue Faery and, in some cases, staff reductions at the funding corporations.
“It makes no sense,” Wilson Woods lamented. “It’s definitely hurt us.”
Wilson Woods would prefer that the government just, “get out of the way.” Blue Faery is a California corporation, and California is king when it comes to over-regulation of business. Couple that with looming federal legislation like HR 6408, and it becomes a game of whack-a-mole to ensure government compliance while trying to maintain charitable work.
Then there is the management of federal funding for critical illness and catastrophic disease. Once a line item has been placed in the federal budget, it’s never reviewed or looked at again. So, while diseases that are under control (like AIDS and some breast cancers) receive abundant funding, the most urgent and deadliest diseases are not receiving adequate funding.
“When it comes to funding research, they need to pay attention to the cancers that are on the rise, that are the deadliest, and that are not getting the funding,” Wilson Woods explained. “So, [Blue Faery] is part of the deadliest cancers coalition, which is sort of the political advocacy we do. The goal is to really raise awareness of these deadliest cancers and to get more funding for them because they’re severely underfunded.”
We often think of how regulations and red tape strangle businesses, but they can also bog down nonprofit organizations that operate on limited budgets from donations. Every dollar spent on compliance with onerous regulations is one less dollar available for solving problems and fighting sickness like cancer.