In his FY 2009 budget, released this morning, President George W. Bush calls to freeze the National Institutes of Health's budget at last year's level of about $29 billion while shaving more than $370 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 2008 budget.

The president's budget also suggests decreasing research funding at the US Department of Agriculture by more than $350 million, but proposes increasing the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) budget by 5.7 percent over last year, giving the agency $2.4 billion in FY 2009.

Not surprisingly, life science research advocacy groups are decrying the president's slight to biomedical research.

"Our continued progress in medicine and advances in health are dependent upon our investment in basic research," said Robert Palazzo, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), in a statement released by the organization. In an opinion piece in The Scientist's January issue, Palazzo argued that the US needs funding increases to maintain the lead in life science research worldwide.

"If this proposal moves forward, it would represent the sixth year of essentially flat-funding for NIH," Palazzo noted in the statement. "This is an injustice to the patients and their families suffering from conditions for which research funded by NIH is their only hope."

"By ignoring the importance of research to our nation's health and economic well-being, this proposal exacerbates the troubling pattern we have seen for the past five years," said Mary Woolley, president of medical and health research advocacy group Research!America in a statement released by the organization. "This disappointing budget undermines the President's own efforts to make our nation more competitive in the global marketplace," Woolley continued. (The Scientist's president and founding editor, Eugene Garfield, sits on Research!America's board of directors.)

Other groups including the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research and the American Association of Medical Colleges have also expressed disappointment over the president's budget.