FLICKR, UNDERSTANDING ANIMAL RESEARCHGiven relatively steady increases in funding (the last 10 years aside) and the number of new papers published each year, the US biomedical research community might expect to see greater outcomes over the past half century—in terms of the numbers of new drugs approved, for example, or gains in life expectancy. But, according to a study published yesterday (August 17) in PNAS, the amount of science being done has not directly translated into public-health benefits.
“The idea of public support for biomedical research is to make lives better. But there is increasing friction in the system,” coauthor Arturo Casadevall, a microbiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said in a press release. “We are spending more money now just to get the same results we always have, and this is going to keep happening if we don’t fix things.”
Casadevall teamed up with Anthony Bowen, an MD/PhD student at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, to compare the “inputs” and “outputs” of biomedical science, such as annual National Institutes of Health budgets and publication numbers, with outcomes such as drug approvals and life expectancy since 1965. What they found didn’t quite add up. ...
