2.6% increase for NIH in 2005

President Bush yesterday (February 2) sent to Congress a $28.6 billion budget request for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in fiscal year 2005, a 2.6% increase of $729 million over the current year's funding. The National Science Foundation (NSF) would receive a 2.5% increase of around $140 million to $5.7 billion, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be cut by 8.9% to $4.3 billion, a reduction of $408 million. The president's overall budget request for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2004, totals $2.4 trillion. Across the board, the average increase in discretionary spending for programs other than defense and homeland security is kept to 0.5%. By this measure, NIH fares relatively well. “On the one hand, it's disappointing because it's not even keeping pace with inflation,” said Dave Moore, associate vice president for government relations at the Association of American Medical Colleges. “On the other hand, you have a $729 million increase over the current year level at a time when overall nondefense is seeing only half a percent increase,” he told The Scientist. Others in the professional scientific community warned the proposals could weaken the nation's research capabilities. The president's budget “threatens our progress in medicine and our position as world leader in the scientific research enterprise,” said Robert D. Wells, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), in a statement. Nils Hasselmo, president of the Association of American Universities, said the administration's budget “significantly underfunds” the nation's investment in scientific research. “The nation must pull itself out of our deficit spiral,” he said in a statement, “but we cannot do so by shortchanging research.”The proposed NIH budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2004, would provide $15.5 billion for extramural research project grants, a 2.7% increase of $403 million. This would fund 10,393 new and competing grants, 258 more than this year, according to NIH estimates. But an analysis by FASEB calculates this funding level will result in about 600 fewer research grants due to the recycling of fewer grants made in fiscal year 2001, increasing grant expenses, and congressionally mandated transfers from the NIH budget that have reduced available program funding.The total number of extramural awards in the president's budget request, including noncompeting grants and grants to small businesses, would increase by 558 to 39,986. Intramural research at NIH would grow by 4%, or $106 million, to $2.8 billion. Funding for buildings and facilities would remain flat at $108 million. Most of the NIH's 27 institutes and centers would receive increases in the 2.8–3.0% range. The largest dollar increases go to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the lead bioterrorism institute, which would receive a $123 million increase to $4.43 billion, and to the National Cancer Institute, which would receive a $134 million increase to $4.87 billion.Biodefense continues to be a major priority throughout the government. NIH's budget includes $1.74 billion—a 7.5% increase of $121 million—for basic research into microbial agents having bioterrorism potential and for applied research to create new and improved diagnostics, vaccines, and therapies. The budget would establish two additional regional centers of excellence for biodefense and emerging diseases, bringing to the total number of those centers to 10. The budget also includes $150 million to build an additional 20 Level 3 biosafety laboratories at universities and research institutions.A combined total of $274 million is requested for a new interagency Bio-Surveillance Program Initiative funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), NIH, CDC, and others. This program would create a system to acquire real-time data on the well being of the population, animals, plants, and food supply and to integrate this information with environmental monitoring and intelligence data. “This initiative will enable us to build upon the success of the BioWatch program, an important public health tool, which has been operating in more than 30 cities across the nation since 2003,” said DHS Secretary Tom Ridge. The BioWatch program is a network of sensors in major cities that continually monitors the air for bioterrorism agents.NSF's budget for research in fiscal year 2005 would increase by 4.7% to $4.45 billion, while major equipment and facility construction funds would be boosted by 37.4% to $213 million. The White House once again is requesting construction begin on the long-delayed National Ecological Observatory Network, a series of environmental monitoring facilities that would collect data on the environment and climate. Congress has rejected similar requests over the past several years.Some are already predicting that political gridlock, combined with a shortened election-year calendar, will delay passage of most of the budget's nondefense-related funding bills until some time after the November elections. “It promises to be another tough year for the budget,” Moore said.

2.6% increase for NIH in 2005

White House proposes 2.5% raise for NSF budget, but would cut CDC by 8.9%

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