Report: Stagnant NIH funding a setback

WASHINGTON, March 20 (UPI) -- The United States' position as a global leader in biomedical research may change if National Institutes of Health funding is not immediately increased, says a new report released Monday by nine of the nation's top medical and scientific universities.

"We're still the No. 1 research institution in the world, yet the number of people that are getting funded to do this kind of research is going to decline if we continue at this flat budgeting," said Edward Miller, chief executive officer and dean of the Medical Faculty of John Hopkins University in Baltimore. Other universities supporting the report include Harvard, Yale and the University of California system.

Health officials and research institutions called on Congress to increase NIH funding or face falling behind in medical progress, a phenomenon already under way, experts say.

In new legislation, Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., promised to persuade Congress "to secure an appropriate increase" and get the budget "back to the level it should be," Harkin said.

Congress doubled the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003, which paved the way for major scientific advances, according to the report. But the extent of the funding has been virtually frozen since 2003, decreasing the NIH budget by an estimated 8 percent to 13 percent.

The NIH budget was $28.3 billion in 2006, and the 2007 budget, to be debated in the House in April, will likely increase by only 0.8 percent, according to the NIH.

The inadequate NIH budget has myriad negative consequences. For instance, fewer future researchers are willing to enter the field, and less research is being done due to a lack of grants.

Eight out of 10 NIH grant applicants get turned down, while 89 percent of cancer research grants are rejected, according to the report. The National Cancer Institute, funded by the NIH, also claims inadequate money has greatly lowered its ability to support research grant applications, as it is able to meet the expenses for only 11 percent of the applications they receive.

The fight against cancer is just one area where biomedical research could lose ground, according to Joan Brugge, chair of the department of cell biology at Harvard Medical School.

"The number of drugs moving into the pipeline based on our new, more profound genetic and molecular understanding of cancer are extraordinary -- and there's no money to handle the testing of these compounds," Brugge said.

Stephen Strittmater, medical professor at Yale University, also feels the pinch. An increasing number of researchers are being let go from research institutions due to a lack of funding, and more still are discouraged by it, he said.

"We do not have enough young researchers to tackle the mysteries of HIV and Alzheimer's disease, as well as new medical challenges that lie ahead," said Strittmater.

Miller hopes Congress and the American public will see the wisdom of reinvesting in the healthcare system before it's too late.

Miller of Johns Hopkins encouraged the United States to examine other countries that are investing more heavily in medical research.

"If we want to stay No. 1 in the world, we've got to reinvest in ourselves," he said.