Irvine Cancer Survivor To Speak At Republican National Convention

IRVINE, CA — 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 is scheduled to speak Monday evening on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.

Natalie Harp first came to Trump's attention in 2019 in an appearance on Fox News Channel when she praised his signing of the Right To Try Act, which expands health care options for terminally ill Americans.

"I was watching and I heard the story of an incredible, unbelievable young woman who is battling rare bone cancer," Trump said 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 was attending the conference and then joined Trump on stage at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel.

"We all know the story about the good Samaritan," Harp said. "But what you don't know is I was that forgotten person on the side of the road, the victim of medical error, the No. 3 cause of death under the previous administration, and left to die of cancer.

"First, the medical establishment, they came by and they saw me there, so they wrote prescriptions for opioids, and they walked on. Next, the political establishment, they saw me there. And they stopped just long enough to come over and tell me how to die, how to speed up my death so I could somehow die with dignity.

"But then, an outsider, my good Samaritan, President Donald J. Trump he saw me there and he didn't walk by. He stopped. And for every single one of us, he gave up his own quality of life so we could live and work and fight with dignity. Because he believes in survival of the fighters, not the fittest."

Harp, a member of the advisory board of Trump's re-election campaign, will be among what the campaign is billing as "everyday Americans from different walks of life" speaking on each of the convention's four nights.

The Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, and Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act of 2017 amends 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."

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