| |
The pharmaceutical industry is finally picking up the ball on the development of medicines to treat drug abuse (The Scientist, Nov. 26, 1990, page 1). The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association has established a nine-member Commission on Medicines for the Treatment of Drug Dependence and Abuse to work with the National Institute of Drug Abuse to develop screening guidelines for member companies who want to send existing therapeutic compounds to NIDA. It will also help NIDA decide which medications are most useful in combating drug abuse. Charles Grudzinskas, director of new product management at Lederle Laboratories, expects that the commission will also try to persuade Congress to give companies more protection from potential product liability suits. For the first time in its history, the National Science Board has arranged a joint meeting with the governing bodies of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering at the academies' Beckman Center in Irvine, Calif. At this historic gathering, February 14-15, the cream of U.S. science policymakers will discuss the importance of public support for research. Unfortunately, they won't be able to hear the man in the best position to bring about such increased support. At the same time as their meeting but some 3,000 miles away in Washington, D.C., President Bush is scheduled to address the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Says one NSB member, "We're sorry about the conflict, but there's not much we can do. We have enough trouble scheduling our own meetings." Some sort of award for the ability to stretch the truth by altering statistics goes to the National Institutes of Health. In a report to a cost-conscious Congress, NIH officials worked over a 98 percent increase in the average cost of research grants over the past decade until it reappeared as a minuscule 1.7 percent annual rise. Their secret? The use of something called a biomedical research and development price index, which contains items that reflect the cost of doing biomedical research. It runs several points higher than the more familiar consumer price index. Using that index to factor out inflation, NIH was able to whittle down the actual increase to a more manageable 16 percent. And by the time it was put on an annual basis, the 98 percent rise had shrunk to a tiny 1.7 percent.
