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Blow to Funds and Morale

January 17, 2013

If the sequestration cuts go into effect at the beginning of March, it will be a "profound and devastating blow" to biomedical research in the US, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins tells Politico. The original deadline to avoid those cuts was at the beginning of January, but lawmakers were able to come to an agreement to delay their enactment.

Politico notes that the NIH budget grew rapidly, nearly doubling, between 1998 and 2003, though that expansion slowed in 2004. In 2011, it was cut by 1.5 percent. Thought its budget has mainly seen increases, Collins notes that inflation has affected the agency's purchasing power.

If sequestration goes into effect, NIH will face a 6.4 percent cut to its budget.

This, he adds, will affect research grants, making them even harder to come by. The funding rate used to be one in three, Collins says, but now it is one in six. "For people who are in the early stage of their career to just miss the pay line once, twice, three times is pretty demoralizing," he adds. "And they are getting demoralized."


The future of America's

Submitted by joekates on Thu, 01/17/2013 - 15:55.

The future of America's economy rests on our ability to be innovative. BTW, it always has. Automatic, accross the board reductions in research funding in all fields, not just biomedical R&D is not intelligent and fails to consider the value proposition and the quality issues that must be part of belt-tightening. Sizable reductions in biomedical research that could help reduce our heathcare financial burden is particularly dangerous given the high cost of healthcare in the US. The US public has suffered for years from a general lack of appreciation of the role of science and research in our global competitiveness and domestic quality of life. This is the time for us to think carefully about our public investments rather than just blind deficit cutting. The lazy indiscriminating way is the wrong way and it will nullify any deficit reductions in the short term by grave losses of opportunity going forward.

Should all publically funded research efforts be supported carte blanche. No! We need to scrutinize how effective such programs are in providing the benefits that we realistically expect as taxpayers. But it must be an educated approach rather than just a political debate.

While there are many excellent aspects of our publically funded scientific efforts they are not perfect and yes there are areas of waste and inefficiency. The NIH has been a major success story over the years but it still requires careful review. In some cases the science may be world class but there are real problems with the administrative and operational aspects that need improvement in order to maximize the benefit to taxpayers. In some cases the Directors are too inbread in the system to see such flaws. We need to consider reviews of such operations by non-traditional experts from outside the fold, in addition to Congress.

In any case, to reduce investment in research, as a general way to cut the deficit is a highly questionable and risky tactic that gambles at poor odds for our future as a nation and for our personal involvement with the wellbeing of the entire world.

One only has to look at other

Submitted by beetlelady on Fri, 01/18/2013 - 20:39.

One only has to look at other countries (i.e., China) and their recent government investment in science and R&D. With this funding trend and the continued message to scientists that your work is not that important (by congress), our competitive edge is slipping, maybe beyond the point of recovery within a few short years.