Four people connected to President Donald Trump’s administration disclosed cancer diagnoses this spring, a sequence that cost the administration its director of national intelligence and spanned the White House staff, a former Cabinet member and the president’s family. The disclosures came within roughly ten weeks of one another. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles announced an early-stage breast cancer diagnosis on March 16. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard resigned May 22 after her husband, Abraham Williams, was diagnosed with what she called an extremely rare form of bone cancer. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi and Vanessa Trump, the former wife of Donald Trump Jr., followed with their own diagnoses within the same period.
Wiles said her doctors detected the cancer early, and Trump posted on Truth Social that her prognosis was strong. She is 68 and has stayed in her post through treatment. Vanessa Trump disclosed her breast cancer through an Instagram post on May 20, saying she was working with her medical team on a treatment plan. She is 48.
Gabbard submitted her resignation to Trump on May 22, writing that her husband faced major challenges ahead and that she could not continue in a demanding position while he undergoes treatment. Williams is a filmmaker who married Gabbard in 2015. He is 37. Her resignation takes effect June 30, with principal deputy director Aaron Lukas named to replace her.
Bondi disclosed thyroid cancer on May 27, telling CBS News she had undergone surgery and was recovering. Trump had fired her as attorney general on April 2 over her handling of records related to Jeffrey Epstein. She has since been appointed to the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The disclosures came as national cancer data records a rise among women and younger adults. Overall incidence has fallen among men while rising among women, according to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Statistics 2025 report. Women under 50 now carry an incidence rate 82 percent higher than men in the same age group, a margin that has widened since 2002. Cancer deaths, by contrast, fell 34 percent between 1991 and 2022 as screening and treatment improved.
Part of the rise reflects earlier detection. Colorectal screening among adults aged 45 to 49 rose 62 percent between 2019 and 2023, which records more early-stage diagnoses. Advanced-stage disease has also risen among adults under 45, which earlier detection alone does not account for. Researchers have not traced the increases to a single cause; factors the cancer society associates with them include alcohol use, obesity, physical inactivity, delayed childbirth and reduced breastfeeding.
The pattern predates the pandemic. Early-onset cancer has risen since federal registries began tracking it in the 1970s. Breast cancer among women under 40 has climbed since the 1930s in the longest-running state registry.
The four diagnoses span three cancer types — breast, thyroid and bone. Federal guidelines define a cancer cluster as a greater-than-expected number of the same or related cancers in a group over time, a standard that four diagnoses of differing types in a loosely connected group does not meet.
A theory connecting the diagnoses to COVID-19 vaccines has circulated on Substack and on X, where some users named the women involved. No official record or peer-reviewed consensus connects the diagnoses to vaccination or to any other common cause. Whether the vaccines affect cancer risk remains a contested research question, with a small body of recent studies under review and major cancer registries reporting no vaccine-attributable rise in incidence.
Each diagnosis is documented on its own. Together, they coincide with a broader rise in cancer among women and younger adults, and the record connects the four to nothing beyond the weeks in which they surfaced.
Support Independent Local Journalism — High Country Advocate was created as a real alternative to regional media that too often silences dissenting voices while taking sides in the political struggle. Producing in-depth, unflinching reporting like this series and others is expensive: servers, editing, research time, and legal review all add up quickly. If these articles have informed you or given you new perspective, please consider supporting HCA with a paid subscription — every subscriber helps keep this reporting strong and independent. 