The White House has pulled together a list of budget cuts — including to biomedical research — that it would like to see enacted this fiscal year, the Associated Press reports. It adds that this "wish list" includes some $18 billion of budget cuts, though notes they are unlikely to be enacted. GenomeWeb also reports on this here.
Still, Stat News notes that the list includes a $1.2 billion decrease to the budget of the National Institutes of Health. It particularly targets IDeA grants, which aim to bolster biomedical research in states that otherwise have low levels of NIH funding, by eliminating $50 million of the program's funds. The rest of the decrease would affect research grants broadly, Stat News says.
It adds that the wish list also proposes cutting $314 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget, specifically from occupational safety, public health preparedness, and HIV/AIDS programs.
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology tells Stat News in a statement that the administration was "throwing progress out the window."
The AP adds that this list doesn't reflect official administration positions, but were offered to lawmakers creating a spending bill for this year to be considered as options.