First, they reported, investigators fail to credit National Institutes of Health sponsorship of their work. Second, they noted, researchers do not clearly communicate the significance and utility of their basic findings to the advancement of medicine, the environment, or the economy.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), for example, views basic science efforts as "curiosity-driven activities," which she equates with pork. Members of Congress fail to see that usable concepts arise, as do oaks from acorns, through development and nurture of new, at first unappreciated, ideas.
Little wonder that the current administration, in its plans for funding health research initiatives, is shifting priorities away from basic biomedical research, which has been America's source of justified pride, to pragmatic "preventive research" and "health service research." Both these efforts feed on what we have done but stifle continuation of theoretical progress.
The following three ideas may help stop this erosion of the image of ...
