Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) welcomed Health
and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to their campus on Wednesday to
celebrate a record increase in the institutes' funding proposed in President
George W. Bush's 2002 budget.
Thompson appeared at the NIH on the same day that the President's
budget is to be officially unveiled to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The budget
asks for nearly $2.8 billion in new funding for medical research at NIH, the
largest single-year increase ever requested for the agency.
"There has been extraordinary support [from Congress] in the last few
years," Dr. Richard Klausner, the director of the National Cancer Institute,
said. "The wind remains in our sails."
While the proposed $2.8 billion dollar increase is a record for NIH,
the figure falls short of the rate of budget increases the agency is
supposed to get over the next 5 years. Thompson told reporters on Wednesday
that "simple arithmetic" means that researchers can expect even more money
to come from Congress in the near future.
The 2002 budget actually represents the third year in a 5-year budget
initiated under the Clinton Administration in 1998. That plan proposed a 15%
increase in NIH spending every year for 5 years that would double the NIH's
budget in 1998. The $2.8 billion increase promulgated by Bush represents a
13.6% increase. The balance increase of 1.4% would have to be made up
somewhere in the next 2 fiscal years.
"Perhaps Congress will see the administration's funding request this
year and up it," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome
Research Institute, told Reuters Health.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R. Penn.), chairman of the appropriations
sub-committee in charge of NIH funding, said through a spokesman that he was
"pleased to see the $2.8 billion increase, but in terms of going above and
beyond that this year, the simple answer is that we don't know if that is
possible."
An aide to Sen. Tom Harkin (D. Iowa), a ranking member of that
committee, added that "If there is an opportunity to increase [the NIH
budget] Harkin would be supportive."
Still, it remains unclear whether NIH will be able to spend the money
as freely as many researchers would like. The Bush administration is still
considering whether to provide federal funding to research human embryonic
stem cells.
Embryonic stem cells are thought by many scientists to have great
potential in medical research because of their ability to propagate many
different kinds of human tissue. But the research faces strong opposition in
Congress because one controversial method of harvesting cells uses cells
from aborted or still-born human embryos. Stem cells may also be harvested
from amniotic fluid and umbilical cords.
Research using stem cells is thought to be helpful in developing
treatments for a host of ailments, including Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease and diabetes, according to Dr. Fred Levine, a
microbiologist and diabetes researcher at the University of California at
San Diego.
"If you don't fund [stem cell] research, you're narrowing the number
of avenues we can pursue," he told Reuters Health in an interview. "It would
be a major setback for several types of research."
Dr. Levine stressed that denying federal funding would slow, but not
stop, embryonic stem-cell research in the United States. Some stem-cell
studies are funded by private organizations, including the Juvenile Diabetes
Foundation, which spends $1.2 million each year on such research, according
to spokesperson Randi Hoffman.
The Bush administration has not yet made a decision on funding
embryonic cell research, Thompson said. But scientists are eager for a
decision since their NIH grant applications are due in two weeks.
"I would tell [scientists] to put in the applications" even while the
administration considers whether to fund them, he said.
