Miranda Jeyaretnam -aol.com
Cartoonist Scott Adams poses for a portrait in his home office in Pleasanton, Calif., on Jan. 6, 2014. Credit – Lea Suzuki—The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
President Donald Trump said he would personally intervene to try to help a prominent supporter with his cancer treatment.
Scott Adams, who created the workplace-set comic strip ‘Dilbert’ in 1989 and who revealed in May that he had prostate cancer that had spread to his bones and expected to only live months longer, said in a social media post on Sunday that he would be asking Trump for help to bring forward his treatment schedule from Kaiser Permanente, after the California-based healthcare provider “dropped the ball” in scheduling his intravenous infusion. The cartoonist said he had been approved to be treated with Pluvicto, a targeted radioligand therapy used to treat prostate cancer that was approved by the FDA in 2022. Adams appealed to Trump to reach out to Kaiser and get them to “respond and schedule it for Monday. That will give me a fighting chance to stick around on this planet a little bit longer.”
“On it!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday, with a screenshot of Adams’ X post. Prior to Trump’s post, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to Adams on X: “Scott. How do I reach you? The President wants to help.” Trump’s son Don Jr. also had responded to Adams’ post on X: “Going to make sure that my dad sees this. We’re all praying for you, keep fighting!”
It’s not clear how Trump will be able to intervene. TIME has reached out to Kaiser Permanente and the White House for comment. The medical provider, which said it has treated over 150 patients with Pluvicto in Northern California, told Reuters that Adams’ oncology team “is working closely with him on the next steps in his cancer care, which are already underway.”
Some on social media have criticized the Trump Administration for personally responding to Adams’ appeal while stripping research institutions of public funding that has fuelled scientific breakthroughs like Pluvicto. The drug was developed by researchers at the German Cancer Research Center and University Hospital Heidelberg in Germany, while research at Purdue University and Johns Hopkins funded through the U.S. National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health contributed to its development.
“It is not a cure,” Adams said of Pluvicto. “But it does give good results to many people.” Adams has not yet publicly responded to Trump’s post.
Here’s what to know about Adams and his connection to Trump.
Longtime cartoonist
Adams created Dilbert in 1989, while working at California-based telephone service provider Pacific Bell. The now-68-year-old became a full-time cartoonist in 1995, after the strip grew in popularity across the U.S.
Dilbert was adapted into an animated TV series of the same name in 1999, which was helmed by Adams and Seinfeld writer Larry Charles. The series won a Primetime Emmy Award in the year it premiered, and ran for two seasons on UPN before being canceled in 2000. In 2020, Adams claimed that the show had been canceled because he was white and the network wanted to cater to Black American viewers.
Adams has since gained controversy over other comments related to race and politics, many of which he made on his video podcast Real Coffee with Scott Adams and on social media. During a February 2023 livestream, Adams referenced a Rasmussen Reports poll that asked respondents if they agreed with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.” The phrase has been associated with the alt-right movement after it gained popularity in 2017 and has been co-opted as a slogan by white supremacists, according to the Anti-Defamation League. After pointing out that 26% of Black respondents disagreed with the statement and 21% were unsure, Adams called Black people a “hate group” and said “the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people; just get the fuck away.”
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