Biomed Caucus Members Express Cautious Optimism On Prospect For Boost In Federal Research Funds

University department chairpersons have been pushing to see dollar support for NIH double in the near future Five billion dollars is not enough, according to a group pushing for the federal government to pump more money into the basic biomedical research funded by the National Institutes of Health. And with Bill Clinton now in the White House, members of the group--the National Caucus of Basic Biomedical Science Chairs-- say they are very optimistic about achieving their goal. Composed of 21 biomedical department chairpersons from 19 different United States universities, the caucus convenes annually at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., to try to educate lawmakers about the importance of increasing funding for the basic biomedical sciences and to lobby for more support. They say ripe fields for investment are molecular and cell biology, molecular genetics, immunology, and structural biology. In an editorial published last October in the FASEB Journal (6:3133-4, 1992), the caucus proclaimed that the level of NIH funding for basic research cannot be "the previous small and insufficient annual increments that were based largely on matching inflation," but rather "will require doubling current spending for biomedical research over the next few years." Though the caucus has not yet established any dialogue with the Clinton administration, many of the members are hopeful that funding will increase under the new president. "I think that it's not likely that there will be less money," says caucus member John Matsen, vice president for health sciences at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center. "I don't know that Clinton has defined what the budget realities are, but I think we have to be optimistic at this point." The newly elected chairman of the caucus, Robert Kelley, chairman of the department of anatomy at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, says he is "very optimistic" that Clinton will heed their suggestions. "We were concerned that NIH was being undercut by what we saw as the increased emphasis on the funding of biotechnology for short-term gain in the previous [Bush] administration," he says. "I believe we'll now have an impact so that people in leadership roles see that the basic science community is concerned about the funding issue." Kelley says if more money were to go to basic research, it would probably come from the expected cuts in the budget of the Defense Department. Yet some caucus members are more skeptical. "Clearly, there's more hope now than there was six months ago," says caucus member Raymond Woosley, chairman of the department of pharmacology at Georgetown University School of Medicine. "Yet there's still no evidence that things are going to change. Our concern is that if Clinton's call for `sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice' goes on very much longer, the basic biomedical sciences are not going to be here when they're called on. There will be nobody home." For fiscal year 1993, NIH is slated to spend a total of nearly $8.9 billion on biomedical research. About 60 percent of that ($5.3 billion) will be spent on what NIH defines as basic research. To put this into perspective, what the federal government will give NIH this year for basic biomedical research is almost double the entire 1993 budget of the National Science Foundation ($2.73 billion), which also funds scientific research. NIH allocations for applied research are less then half ($2.5 billion) that of basic research and in the past year have increased only 5.1 percent, while basic research has increased 6.1 percent. However, Georgetown's Woosley disputes the numbers: "Even though they say some large percentage, like 60 percent, is `basic,' it's basic but directed research toward a disease or illness, like AIDS or curing cancer. "The basic research that's directed is not pure basic research," he says. "Scientists are finding it very difficult to get funding for basic, undirected research into the basic principles and mechanisms of biology, which could possibly have a huge potential benefit....If you stop planting seeds, the fields are dead in a few years." Former NIH director James Wyngaarden says that although he supports the general notion that increased funding would benefit basic biomedical research, the total U.S. investment in this area is equal to those of other highly industrialized countries, such as Germany and Japan. "Every field competing for the federal dollar can make the claim that there are valuable aspects of research that cannot be explored because of lack of finances," says Wyngaarden, who was NIH director from 1982 to 1989 and is now the foreign secretary at the National Academy of Sciences. "There's no question that there is potentially valuable basic biomedical research that is not being addressed because of lack of funds. On the other hand, we have put forth a very substantial effort that is comparable to many other nations." The next meeting of the caucus is scheduled to take place in the middle of April.

Biomed Caucus Members Express Cautious Optimism On Prospect For Boost In Federal Research Funds

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