support science !

[liontamer]

When people want to defund grants it's because the research tends to piss of fundies and is about "bad " topics, like sexual health and drug use. The Bush administration(like all republican administrations) has been slashing the NIH budget every year.



"Support Senate Appropriations Bill to Fund Biomedical Research, Protect Peer Review

The Senate Appropriations Committee has released its version of the FY06 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, which appropriates $29.4 billion to the National Institutes of Health. In addition, the Senate bill places no restrictions on peer-reviewed grants that have been funded in the current year.

By contrast, last month, the House of Representatives passed its version of the bill that that appropriates only $28.5 billion to NIH and includes an amendment to defund two grants approved through the NIH peer-review process. Clearly, the Senate bill provides more money for health research, without placing onerous, politically motivated restrictions on science.

SfN asks that you contact your Senators to urge them to support the Senate Appropriations Committee bill when it comes to the floor in September at a level of $29.4 billion for NIH, with no restrictions on specific grants.

Please visit CapWiz, an on-line legislative action center, provided to you by SfN: www.sfn.org/legalert "

************** Thank you in advance for your participation! ************************

[Pepperbelly]

1. Something interesting about this ...

Your post prompted me to take a look at the NIH website and found this ... a breakdown of the outstanding research projects under way sorted by subject. It is remarkable and clearly points toward agendas. Some of the choices surprised me, others did not.

Not which areas have the most, which the least. See what it reflect for you.

http://www.nih.gov/news/fundingresearchareas.htm

[liontamer]

2. good eye

but some of the way they broke up categories was odd.

[Kraklen]

3. What sort of agendas?

I see nothing that stands out.

[Pepperbelly]

4. well ... for example ...

There 95 programs for Sickle Cell, 89 for spinal cord injuries, yet we see 1462 for Substance abuse with an additional 1023 for drug abuse. 181 studies regarding antimicrobial resistence, 93 for autism, 429 for coronary heart disease while there are 2684 for behavioral and social science with another 938 for basic in the same fields.

Make of it what you will or won't but this seems skewed to me.

[Kraklen]

5. Those numbers are millions of dollars, not number of programs.

The amount seems to reflect the severity of the issue. Heart disease and substance abuse affects a huge number of people. Whereas sickle cell anemia and antimicrobial resistance is relatively rare.

I'm still not seeing a pattern or agenda.

[Pepperbelly]

6. antimicrobial resistence rare?

I am merely going to set the record straight on this rather than trying to take rhetorical advantage over an error of fact. Antimicrobial resistence isn't a disease, it is the result of decades long over prescription of antibiotics to the point that microbes have become resistent to them FYI, this has become a tremendous problem in hospitals throught the USA and the world. In fact, what it takes to deal with these superbugs changes very quickly because the resistence takes place rapidly.

If those are dollars rather than projects, that is well and good and still does not change the ratios. If you believe drug abuse or behavioral science deserves more funding than research into sickle cell anemia, spinal cord injury or coronary disease, much less the raging plague of microbial resistence to antibiotics, then there really isn't much room for discussion. We do have even a semblence of common values.

[Kraklen]

7. Compared to heart disease it is.

It's a growing problem, but it's nothing compared to heart disease yet.

They all deserve more funding, but some are more serious problems than others.

How would you spend the money differently?

[Pepperbelly]

8. for starters ,,,

I would defund quite a bit, not all but a lot of the behavioral and social science research as well as the substance abuse and drug abuse research while increasing funds for all of the others I detailed in my posts ... coronary heart disease, microbial resistance (which could effectively put us back into a Prue-penicillin world, as well as spinal cord injury, and perhaps brain chemistry (rather than so much in behavioral science, et all.) Cancers are covered in a big way are others.

Of course, the problem with this is that it reflects the political climate. That is absolutely the only reason drugs get that kind of attention. If we went over it a bit more closely, we'd probably see other reflections of the political will of Congress.