A new coalition has formed in a bid to protect funding at the US National Institutes of Health.
In a budget proposal out earlier in March, the Trump administration called for a nearly 20 percent cut — almost $6 billion — to the NIH budget, as well as reductions to the budgets of other science agencies. This has led a public affairs firm, JPA Health Communications, to establish the Coalition to Save NIH Funding to educate both lawmakers and the public about the importance of biomedical research.
"We were dismayed to learn that the NIH is vulnerable to deep funding cuts," Carrie Jones from JPA Health Communications says in a statement. "Each day America benefits from the innovation and scientific discoveries made at the NIH. We won't sit idly by and watch critical research be stifled."
According to the statement, the coalition is to be made up of stakeholders from healthcare, research, pharmaceutical development, and patient advocacy and other nonprofit organizations.