Flat NIH Funding Threatens War on Disease
Director, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation
Since the discovery of microbes that cause human illness more than 130 years ago, medicine and our specialty, pediatrics, have made incredible progress in preventing and treating disease and disorders. Much of this progress has been fueled by research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Only within the last 20 years – and especially with completion of the human genome project in 2003 – have we begun to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying serious pediatric problems such as cancers and birth defects.
Arnold Strauss, MD
Director, Cincinnati Children's Research Foundation
We now have at our disposal a toolbox of techniques and data from genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, and other “omics.” These tools have let us understand and attack illness from directions only imagined a decade ago. The driving force behind this progress was funding from the NIH, whose budget doubled from 1998 to 2003.
Progress Hits a Wall
That era of great momentum has been followed by four consecutive years of flat NIH funding – actually, a decrease when adjusted for inflation – and scientific innovation is being stifled. Just as we found ourselves on the threshold of advances that could turn our molecular toolbox into an effective arsenal against cancer, obesity, diabetes and heart disease, the field of medical research is under financial siege. Progress is replaced with growing stagnation in new research projects and discovery, and the cost of inertia is paid in the currency of continued human suffering.
A National Crisis
Physicians and researchers are feeling the ramifications at medical centers and research institutions nationwide. If not corrected, the NIH funding crisis will result in a lost generation of scientific discovery and medical advancement. Many gifted young scientists are already leaving research altogether, frustrated by inability to get their ideas funded or their careers off the ground.
Here at Cincinnati Children’s, we are certainly feeling the impact. As the nation’s second-largest recipient of NIH funding for pediatric research (NIH funds account for 75 percent of our research budget), flat funding is dramatically inhibiting our ability to conduct research. Our rate of accepted applications to NIH has dropped from 40 percent in 2001 to nearly 26 percent. Even our most experienced and talented scientists have had their funding reduced; new researchers face repeated applications and long delays in funding.
Our unfunded research has reached a record $50 million per year.Money that could have helped us purchase equipment to advance knowledge is now needed just to keep our laboratories running.
Our Future Health Is at Risk
As physicians and researchers, we must ask: Which new discovery will our society miss the most? How do we tell parents that our ability to help their child is limited by what we do not know, or what might have been discovered with greater research activity?
We should consider these the unacceptable consequences of shortsighted funding decisions by the federal government. Use your voice; inform members of Congress and other decision-makers that the NIH must have a budget that allows medical science to continue moving forward. The fate of our children and our future depend on it.
