Researchers Applaud Bush's NIH budget

[Guest guest]

rrollens@... wrote:

>

> (No more excuses from NIH on why they spend so little ($12 million a year)

> on autism research. This proposed $2.8 billion increase is on top of an

> exsisting $17 billion budger !! Our voices will be heard in

> Washington....Start funding research at the level an epidemic calls for. No

> more throwing pennies at a billion dollar problem !! rick)

>

> Researchers Applaud Bush’s NIH budget

>

> [by Todd Zwillich Reuters Health.]

>

> http://www.reutershealth.com/cgi-bin/frame2?top=/tops/business.html & left=/bu

> sl.html & right=/archive/2001/02/28/business/links/20010228legi002.html <--

> address ends here

>

> Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) welcomed

> Health

> and Human Services Secretary Tommy to their campus on Wednesday to

> celebrate a record increase in the institutes' funding proposed in

> President

> W. Bush's 2002 budget.

> appeared at the NIH on the same day that the President's

> budget is to be officially unveiled to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The

> budget

> asks for nearly $2.8 billion in new funding for medical research at NIH,

> the

> largest single-year increase ever requested for the agency.

> " There has been extraordinary support [from Congress] in the last few

> years, " Dr. Klausner, the director of the National Cancer

> Institute,

> said. " The wind remains in our sails. "

> While the proposed $2.8 billion dollar increase is a record for NIH,

> the figure falls short of the rate of budget increases the agency is

> supposed to get over the next 5 years. told reporters on Wednesday

> that " simple arithmetic " means that researchers can expect even more money

> to come from Congress in the near future.

> The 2002 budget actually represents the third year in a 5-year budget

> initiated under the Clinton Administration in 1998. That plan proposed a

> 15%

> increase in NIH spending every year for 5 years that would double the NIH's

> budget in 1998. The $2.8 billion increase promulgated by Bush represents a

> 13.6% increase. The balance increase of 1.4% would have to be made up

> somewhere in the next 2 fiscal years.

> " Perhaps Congress will see the administration's funding request this

> year and up it, " Dr. Francis , director of the National Human Genome

> Research Institute, told Reuters Health.

> Sen. Arlen Specter (R. Penn.), chairman of the appropriations

> sub-committee in charge of NIH funding, said through a spokesman that he

> was

> " pleased to see the $2.8 billion increase, but in terms of going above and

> beyond that this year, the simple answer is that we don't know if that is

> possible. "

> An aide to Sen. Tom Harkin (D. Iowa), a ranking member of that

> committee, added that " If there is an opportunity to increase [the NIH

> budget] Harkin would be supportive. "

> Still, it remains unclear whether NIH will be able to spend the money

> as freely as many researchers would like. The Bush administration is still

> considering whether to provide federal funding to research human embryonic

> stem cells.

> Embryonic stem cells are thought by many scientists to have great

> potential in medical research because of their ability to propagate many

> different kinds of human tissue. But the research faces strong opposition

> in

> Congress because one controversial method of harvesting cells uses cells

> from aborted or still-born human embryos. Stem cells may also be harvested

> from amniotic fluid and umbilical cords.

> Research using stem cells is thought to be helpful in developing

> treatments for a host of ailments, including Alzheimer's disease,

> Parkinson's disease and diabetes, according to Dr. Fred Levine, a

> microbiologist and diabetes researcher at the University of California at

> San Diego.

> " If you don't fund [stem cell] research, you're narrowing the number

> of avenues we can pursue, " he told Reuters Health in an interview. " It

> would

> be a major setback for several types of research. "

> Dr. Levine stressed that denying federal funding would slow, but not

> stop, embryonic stem-cell research in the United States. Some stem-cell

> studies are funded by private organizations, including the Juvenile

> Diabetes

> Foundation, which spends $1.2 million each year on such research, according

> to spokesperson Randi Hoffman.

> The Bush administration has not yet made a decision on funding

> embryonic cell research, said. But scientists are eager for a

> decision since their NIH grant applications are due in two weeks.

> " I would tell [scientists] to put in the applications " even while the

> administration considers whether to fund them, he said.