Tag: National Institutes of Health
Biden’s science adviser resigns over bullying
Volume 399, Issue 10326
19 February 2022
WORLD REPORT Experts say that Eric Lander’s resignation should not affect the President’s plans to reboot the cancer moonshot project. Susan Jaffe reports.…
Decisions to be made on US gun violence research funds
Volume 395 Number 10222 8 February 2020
WORLD REPORT The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will decide how to spend new federal funds later this year. Susan Jaffe reports from Washington, DC.
After a hiatus of more than two decades, Congress and President Donald Trump agreed to add funding for gun violence research to the federal budget in December. With grants expected to be awarded in September, the priorities for research and its potential impact are crucial for halting the US’s record-breaking gun-related death toll. [Continued here.]
…High stakes for research in US 2018 budget negotiations
Volume 390, Number 10099
9 September 2017
WORLD REPORT As Congress considers how to fund the government next year, scientists hope spending for research will not be curtailed. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
The dramatic defeat of the Republicans’ Affordable Care Act (ACA) repeal legislation still looms over the US Capitol as Congress reconvenes this month for more tough decisions, including many that will affect health and science research programmes. …The prospects for science funding will depend on competing budget pressures and political fissures. “There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of uncertainty”, said Matt Hourihan, at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “And while a spending deal [agreement] is certainly possible, it’s hard to see how they get there from here.” [Continued here]…
Marching for science as budget cuts threaten US research
Volume 389, Number 10080
29 April 2017
WORLD REPORT Americans push back against President Trump’s proposed budget cuts… Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
President Donald Trump is famous for his early morning Tweets and off-the-cuff remarks that can sometimes be puzzling. But what he thinks about biomedical research and basic science is quite clear in his first proposed budget for running the federal government.
March for Science, Washington, D.C. / Susan Jaffe
Trump’s America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again outlines a $1·1 trillion spending plan that would take effect when the new fiscal year begins in October. The president wants to move $54 billion from domestic agencies to fortify the US military. To help pay for the transfer, he is proposing funding cuts for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; 31%) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH; 18%) [and other domestic agencies]….
To squeeze $5·8 billion out of the agency’s $30·3 billion budget, the Trump administration would reorganise NIH’s 27 institutes and centres and “rebalance federal contributions to research funding” according to the budget blueprint. …Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told a congressional committee last month that the NIH could operate on a tighter budget by cutting the roughly 30% of grant money that pays for indirect research costs. These expenses can include rent, utilities, administrative staff, and equipment. “That money goes for something other than the research that’s being done”, Price said.
Price’s suggestion was especially disturbing coming from the person who is responsible for overseeing the NIH, said Harold Varmus, who directed the NIH in the 1990s and headed the National Cancer Institute at NIH for 5 years until 2015. “You can’t do research in the dark”, he said. “You can’t do research—at least my kind of research—without a building and without electricity and water and administrative expenses”. [Continued here]
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US global health leadership hangs on election result
Volume 388, Number 10055
22 October 2016
WORLD REPORT On most issues, the US presidential candidates have polar opposite views; engagement in global health is no different. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
Americans will choose their next president in less than 3 weeks and yet some global health experts still wonder what would happen to the international health programmes that the USA has championed in recent decades if the Republican contender, Donald Trump, is elected. The uncertainty comes despite the Ebola virus and Zika virus threats that made global health front-page news. [Continued here] …
US presidential candidates urged to support health research
Volume 387, Number 10037
18 June 2016
WORLD REPORT Advocates for medical research are eager to hear how the presidential candidates would advance the search for new treatments. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
As the most tumultuous presidential primary season in recent times comes to an end, biomedical researchers, physicians, and advocacy groups want the candidates campaigning for the White House to address some of the substantive matters they worry about: National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, advancing Alzheimer’s disease research, speeding up drug development, and a host of research related issues.
… In New Hampshire last year, the campaigns provided a preview of the kind of discussion between candidates and voters that research and patients’ advocacy groups would like. It revealed a stark difference between Clinton and Trump on funding for Alzheimer’s research and support for those caring for the 5·4 million Americans stricken with the disease. [Continued here]
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NIH hopes funding increases will continue
Volume 387, Number 10019
13 February 2016
WORLD REPORT The US National Institutes of Health welcomed a record budget boost that might be the start of more sustained support. The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, reports.
The US Congress recently approved the largest single increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 12 years—a US$2 billion raise that was twice as much as President Barack Obama requested. But almost as soon as NIH supporters stopped cheering, they began to worry about next year’s budget, and the challenge of a new public health threat, Zika virus.
NIH Director Francis Collins told The Lancet that the funding boost “was enormously gratifying”. But if it is “a one-hit wonder”, he said “it won’t be sufficient to take full advantage of the remarkable scientific opportunities and talent that is out there”. [Continued here] [podcast here]
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Budget boon for biomedical research
Susan Jaffe | Washington Correspondent for The Lancet | 31st December 2015
The US Congress has become famous for political gridlock but s
hortly before going home for the holidays, members approved a 2,009-page budget for fiscal year 2016 with generous increases for some key health and science agencies, most notably the ailing National Institutes of Health. [Continued here.]…
End in sight for revision of US medical research rules
Volume 386, Number 10000
26 September 2015
WORLD REPORT End in sight for revision of US medical research rules US health officials expect to update 25-year-old regulations on human participation in research by the end of next year. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
After proposing massive changes 4 years ago to rules first issued in 1991 protecting people participating in research studies, federal health officials produced yet another revision earlier this month and say the effort to update the rules is on a fast track.
The revolution in science, technology, medicine, and public involvement that has transformed biomedical research over the past 25 years might be sufficient reason for the latest update, a daunting task that began in 2009, shortly after Barack Obama became president. But now there’s another factor driving the effort. [Continued here]
…Congressional showdown threatens NIH funding boost
Volume 386, Issue 9996, 29 August 2015
WORLD REPORT Bills providing extra funding for the National Institutes of Health while cutting other programmes could a face presidential veto. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
After years of mostly stagnant funding for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), two powerful congressional committees that control government spending have approved separate budget bills containing record increases for the agency.
But last month, President Barack Obama’s Office of Management and Budget director Shaun Donovan wrote to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations warning that he expects the president to veto its bill. Among other reasons, Donovan said it “drastically” cuts money for public health programmes including Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid, serving low-income Americans. And it would deny funds for operating the health insurance exchanges essential to the president’s signature health reform law, the Affordable Care Act. [Continued in full text or PDF ]
…21st Century Cures
12 August 2015
A dispatch from our Washington correspondent on the sluggish progress of the 21st Century Cures Act.
Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives last month overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Act aimed at speeding up drug development. But the Senate is not expected to vote on its version until next year.
More than 80 percent of the House backed the legislation after it was unanimously — a word rarely heard on Capitol Hill — approved by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. In the process, the bill was revised to address concerns that drug approvals would happen a little too quickly, circumventing safety and efficacy standards. [Continued here]
…Planning for US Precision Medicine Initiative underway
Volume 385, Issue 9986, 20 June 2015
WORLD REPORT Officials expect to launch the US President’s new health project later this year. But Congress has yet to decide whether to fully fund it. The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, Susan Jaffe, reports.
While continuing to defend his besieged health-care reform law against lawsuits and repeal threats, US President Barack Obama is championing a new health initiative. This one also has a bold goal: to radically change the medical treatment patients receive in the USA. “I want the country that eliminated polio and mapped the human genome to lead a new era of medicine—one that delivers the right treatment at the right time”, the President said when he unveiled his Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) in his annual State of the Union address to the nation in January. …Central to the PMI will be the creation of a research cohort of 1 million US volunteers who agree to provide researchers with biological, environmental, lifestyle, and other information as well as tissue samples….The effort to vastly expand the scope and practice of individually designed treatments based on genetic information could revolutionise medicine, supporters say. But the success of the PMI depends on whether Congress agrees to fund it. [Continued in full text or PDF ] …
21st Century Cures Act progresses through US Congress
Volume 385, Issue 9983, 30 May 2015
WORLD REPORT A bill to speed up the translation of biomedical discoveries is getting wide support, but some argue that it is not adequately funded. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
An ambitious bipartisan plan to accelerate medical innovation in the USA is moving ahead in a Congress famous for political gridlock.
The proposed 21st Century Cures Act was approved unanimously on May 21 by the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce. The massive bill would promote discovery of new medicines and get them to patients more quickly. But the bill’s bipartisan support nearly collapsed when Democrats insisted on additional funds for the two federal agencies intricately involved in carrying out the bill’s far-reaching provisions.
Behind-the-scenes discussions finally yielded an infusion of US$10 billion over 5 years for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Shortly before the committee vote, $550 million over 5 years was added for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for ensuring new treatments are safe and effective. …But funding for both agencies did not come easy, is still uncertain, and might fall far short of what is needed. [Continued full text or PDF]…
NIH budget shrinks despite Ebola emergency funds
Volume 385, Issue 9966, 31 January 2015
WORLD REPORT Even with a boost in funding for Ebola research, the US National Institutes of Health’s fiscal year 2015 budget is the lowest in years. Susan Jaffe, The Lancet’s Washington correspondent, reports.
During last year’s contentious congressional hearings investigating the US response to Ebola, the Obama Administration’s top health officials fended off criticism hurled by both Democrats and Republicans. But in another show of bipartisanship only a few weeks later, Congress granted nearly all of President Barack Obama’s request for emergency funding to combat the disease here and abroad.
NIH Director Francis Collins
In his State of the Union address earlier this month, the President expressed his appreciation: “In west Africa, our troops, our scientists, our doctors, our nurses, and health-care workers are rolling back Ebola—saving countless lives, and stopping the spread of disease”, he said, drawing applause from both sides of the aisle. “I couldn’t be prouder of them, and I thank this Congress for your bipartisan support of their efforts.”
Congress narrowly approved the US$5·4 billion emergency Ebola funding contained in the $1·1 trillion spending bill that kept the US Government running. But so far, it has done little to loosen the budget constraints on the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—even as a global health crisis such as Ebola reminded many lawmakers of its value. [MORE full text or PDF ] …