"A 10% Cut from the NIH Budget (the so-called sequester) Would Save 0.008% of Federal Budget"!

[grahamhgreen]

"Because of the budget shenanigans, NIH has been forced to cut or delay funding to almost all new projects.... And just to be clear: these are only the best projects. 80-85% of projects submitted to NIH, many of them excellent, don’t make the cut because NIH just doesn’t have enough funding for them....

For readers who might think I’m asking for a lot, think again. The entire NIH budget comes to about $31 billion, which supports research on hundreds of diseases. The total U.S. budget last year was 3,729 billion (3.7 trillion), so the NIH budget is less than 1% of the total. A 10% cut from the NIH budget (the so-called “sequester” plan) would save 0.008% of the federal budget. This matters not a whit in the overall budget debate – but it would be a huge blow to biomedical research, crippling some research programs for years to come.

And for those who want to look at this from an economic perspective , NIH funding is a terrific investment. A nonpartisan study in 2000 concluded:

“Publicly funded research in general generates high rates of return to the economy, averaging 25 to 40 percent a year.”


So I’m asking the leaders of Congress (yes, I’m talking to you, Congressman John Boehner and Senator Harry Reid) to put aside the fighting for a few minutes. Bring up the NIH budget and pass it. Don’t cut it by 10% (the “sequester” plan), which would be devastating to biomedical research and would save only 0.008% of the budget. Don’t bundle it into some omnibus “grand bargain” that everyone knows is neither grand nor a bargain."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2013/01/14/congress-is-killing-medical-research/