An entrepreneur from Irvine who was allowed to try experimental drugs to combat her cancer under a bill signed into law by President Donald Trump used a speech at the Republican National Convention Monday evening to credit him with saving her life.
“I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for you,” Natalie Harp said.
Harp began the nearly 4 1/2-minute speech by describing herself as “a formerly forgotten American from California.” She explained that she survived “a notoriously deadly medical error” then was “diagnosed with a rare and terminal bone cancer.”
Harp said after failing “the chemotherapies on the market, no one wanted me in their clinical trials. I’d make them look bad.”
“They didn’t give me the right-to-try experimental treatments, Mr. President,” Harp said. “You did. And without you, I’d have died waiting for them to be approved.”
In 2018, Trump signed the Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, and Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act of 2017 into law. It amended federal law to allow certain unapproved, experimental drugs to be administered to terminally ill patients who have exhausted all approved treatment options and are unable to participate in clinical drug trials.
“People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure,” Trump said in 2018. “I want to give them a chance right here at home.”
Harp is a member of the advisory board for Trump’s re-election campaign. She first came to his attention in 2019 in an appearance on Fox News Channel when she praised his signing of the bill.
“I was watching and I heard the story of an incredible, unbelievable young woman who is battling rare bone cancer,” Trump said on June 26, 2019, at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Road to Majority Conference.
“Her name is Natalie Harp and she lit up the television screen like very few people I’ve ever seen do it. And she talked about how they were preparing her for death. And because of Right to Try, she’s now living and, I think, doing phenomenally well.”
Harp also praised Trump for his response to the coronavirus outbreak and his administration’s efforts to develop a vaccine.
A longtime Orange County elementary school teacher who was the lead plaintiff in a case that challenged mandatory union fees for public employees also spoke at the convention Monday. The Supreme Court deadlocked in 2016 on Rebecca Friedrichs’ case, thus affirming a lower-court decision against her.
“I’m here to give voice to America’s great teachers because our voices have been silenced for decades by unions who claim to represent us,” Friedrichs said.
“Democrats stand with deceptive teachers’ unions who pick on loving teachers and little kids. President Trump stands with America’s families, great teachers, and most importantly our children.”
Trump’s second-term agenda, released Sunday, includes providing “school choice to every child in America,” which Friedrichs said would “empower kids to escape dangerous, low-performing schools.”
School choice has been long vehemently opposed by teachers’ unions, fearing it will reduce school funding, which is traditionally based on enrollment.
Friedrichs in 2017 founded For Kids and Country, which bills itself as a San Clemente-based “coalition of parents, teachers, mature students, faith leaders, and citizens standing together to restore proper authority, excellence and safety in America’s schools.”
The theme for the convention’s first night was “America, Land of Promise.” It mixed speeches from what the Trump campaign billed as “everyday Americans from different walks of life” and such past and present elected and appointed officials including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina.