EO-14355
Unlocking Cures for Pediatric Cancer With Artificial Intelligence
- Signed
- Sep 30, 2025
- Published
- Oct 7, 2025
Federal Register: 2025-19495
Source: Federal Register.
Using AI to Advance Pediatric Cancer Research and Treatment
What it does
This order directs the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, the Department of Health and Human Services, and related federal offices to apply artificial intelligence tools to the existing Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI). It instructs agencies to improve data infrastructure, enhance clinical trial design, and finalize interoperability standards so that electronic health records and claims data can be shared safely for pediatric cancer research. The order also directs agencies to identify ways to redirect existing federal funds toward these goals and to encourage private-sector AI investment in pediatric cancer.
Who benefits
Children and adolescents (ages 1–19) diagnosed with cancer and their families. Researchers and clinicians at National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Centers. Academic and private-sector AI developers working in biomedical research. Patients who would gain better access to clinical trials through improved recruitment tools. Broader patient populations who could benefit from improved health data interoperability standards developed under this order.
Who is affected
Patients and parents whose electronic health records and claims data would be used for research, raising privacy considerations. Federal agency staff at NIH, HHS, and OMB who must redirect existing workloads and budgets. Researchers whose funding priorities may shift toward AI-focused projects, potentially at the expense of non-AI pediatric cancer research. Private-sector health data vendors subject to new interoperability standards. Clinical trial administrators who would need to adapt to new AI-driven design and recruitment requirements.
Supporters argue
Supporters argue that pediatric cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death in children, and that AI's ability to analyze complex, multimodal biological and clinical data could accelerate breakthroughs that decades of conventional research have not achieved. They contend the order builds on an already-funded, bipartisan data infrastructure (the CCDI) and that the president's Article II authority to coordinate executive branch agencies makes this a well-grounded, targeted use of presidential direction to focus existing resources on a widely shared national priority.
Opponents argue
Opponents argue the order is largely aspirational — it directs agencies to "identify strategies" and "work to finalize" standards rather than mandating concrete, enforceable actions, meaning it may produce little measurable change. They contend that redirecting existing federal funds toward AI-focused research could reduce support for other pediatric cancer approaches, and that the order's data-sharing provisions raise unresolved privacy questions under the Fourth Amendment and existing health privacy law (HIPAA) that could expose patient data to misuse before adequate safeguards are in place.
Constitutional basis
Executive orders rest on constitutional authority or statutory delegation. This summary describes the legal grounding cited or implied by the order.
The order invokes the president's Article II vesting clause authority to direct and coordinate executive branch agencies. It also draws on statutory authority under the National Cancer Act and the 21st Century Cures Act, which delegate to HHS and NIH broad authority over federal cancer research programs and health data interoperability. The AI definition is grounded in 15 U.S.C. §9401(3), the National AI Initiative Act.