The Human Cost of Defunding Science: Ben Eaton’s Story of Survival and Advocacy

January 14, 2026

This story was written by Patient Action for Cancer Research in partnership with Ben Eaton.  

Growing up in Houston, TX, Ben Eaton considered himself “a pretty normal guy.” Ben, now 38, enjoyed playing paintball and video games, while balancing his career in IT support. He eventually moved into a nearby apartment complex, where he met his new neighbor and now partner, Beth Levine. 

​

In February 2024, Ben began experiencing severe constipation. One night, while cat-sitting at Beth's apartment, the pain became so intense that he went to a nearby urgent care. Imaging revealed a mass in Ben's colon and multiple masses in his liver. Ben was then sent to the hospital for further imaging and diagnostic testing, and quickly transferred to the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center.

​

At MD Anderson, Ben was diagnosed with Early Onset Stage 4B colorectal cancer, with a specific mutation called KRAS G12C. According to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance, “a normal KRAS gene teams up with a group of proteins as an ‘on/off’ switch to monitor cell growth. An abnormal mutation in the KRAS gene happens early in the development of cancer. This abnormality is known as a driver mutation because it causes the switch to be locked in the ‘on’ position and drives uncontrolled cell growth, leading a tumor to form.”

​

The CCA notes that about 40-45 percent of colorectal cancer patients have a KRAS mutation in their tumor. Cancer researchers have made important strides in understanding and treating this mutation. 

​

Because of the KRAS mutation, Ben initially wasn’t eligible for many standard immunotherapies. Throughout 2024, he received intensive chemotherapy, beginning with the multi-drug regimen known as FOLFIRINOX. Treatments consumed his Fridays; he left each session connected to an infusion pump that ran through Sunday. Ben found the side effects compounded month after month–pain and numbness in his hands and feet, fatigue, and narrowing windows of feeling “normal” between rounds.

Ben developed neuropathy, and his oncology team opted to change directions: his doctors dropped one of the chemotherapies in his treatment, and shifted him to FOLFIRI, a similar chemotherapy cocktail. While Ben was not showing new tumor activity at this time, he also wasn’t seeing shrinkage in the primary colon tumor. The liver had a high number and distribution of lesions, which potentially presented a more immediate threat.

As his partner, Beth threw herself into the role of Ben’s advocate and researcher. “I was just trying to get through each day, but she spent hours—every day—learning everything she could about my diagnosis, what it meant, what treatment options existed, and what might be coming,” Ben said. “She dove head first into the research, so we could understand it together.”

Beth read studies, followed trial data, and tracked updates from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, which happened to be only minutes from their apartment. She learned how fast the field was shifting, especially for younger patients and KRAS mutations. When the Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to the KRAS G12C inhibitor Adagrasib in 2024 for use in colorectal cancer cases, it unlocked immunotherapy combinations previously unavailable to Ben.

​

By late fall, his oncologists at MD Anderson—one of the only centers running the relevant clinical trial—offered him a choice: continue traditional chemo or attempt the newly approved targeted therapy combination of Adagrasib and Cetuximab, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor. Doctors paired the treatment with Cemiplimab, a clinical trial PD-1 Checkpoint Inhibitor immunotherapy.

For Ben, the change was immediate. Under chemo, recovery consumed days. Simply walking could be painful. But with immunotherapy, “my quality of life is a hundred times better,” he said. “Chemo is poison. Your body’s constantly fighting. With immunotherapy, I feel like myself again.” 

By mid-year of 2025, Ben’s scans started revealing steady reductions in his liver metastases. His promising response to the trial has opened treatment possibilities that didn’t exist for Ben, even just a few months earlier.

Prior to the clinical trial, surgical oncologists believed any attempts at a liver resection for Ben would be impossible: his disease was too advanced. But with this new shift and response to the clinical trial, that changed. Ben’s clinical team told him they could now attempt to clear or remove a large number of metastatic activity in Ben's liver. A surgery that could have the potential to both exponentially change and increase his life expectancy.

“Back in May, this was impossible,” Beth said. “By October, we had a surgery date. That is absolutely because of the trial.”

For Ben, the trial has been transformative—emotionally as well as medically. A clinical trial is a legacy. “A big reason I chose the trial was to help future patients. I could write a book on how awful long-term chemotherapy was. That would've been the rest of my life—either staying on it until it stopped working or until I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. The trial gave me a different path.”

The experience has motivated Beth to become an outspoken advocate. When Beth speaks about funding, she speaks in weeks—because for people like Ben, she believes weeks determine survival. When a nationwide pause in federal research funding rippled across trials in 2025, Ben’s study continued, while others were disrupted. His continuity of treatment put Ben on the path for surgery and a more optimistic prognosis. “That’s the difference six weeks can make,” Beth said. “One person sees Christmas. One person doesn’t.”

​

Ben did this interview to help spread awareness, as he is worried where uncertainty in federal funding may lead him. “It’s saddening. What if they stop funding my trial? What if future trials that could help me don’t happen? I still have metastases in my liver and lungs. My current treatment is working for the liver—but next we’d target the lungs and the primary tumor. Cutting funding feels like a betrayal. It feels personal.”

​

“The research pipeline is his lifeline … You can’t turn science on and off like a light switch. If it stops, the pipeline collapses,” Beth said. “Whether Ben is here at forty depends on what happens in the next few years. Without funding, you don’t just slow progress, you lose people. Not in decades. In months.”

​

On November 5, 2025, Ben underwent a liver resection in combination with a revolutionary new procedure using the FDA-approved HistoSonics Edison System: istotripsy, a “noninvasive treatment for liver cancer patients that uses ultrasound technology to destroy tumors,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.

​

Ben’s procedure was performed in an intense open surgery, followed by a month-long hospital stay due to GI complications. Ben has recovered, and through the hard work and determination of his care team at MD Anderson and his partner, he was able to meet the deadline to re-enter his clinical trial on December 22.

​

While Ben and Beth do not know what the future holds, they both know that without Ben’s research pipeline and clinical trials, there won’t be one. Ben continues to share his story about the human cost of defunding clinical research. They plan to do all they can to advocate not just for Ben, but for patients like him across the country.