Researchers Decry Cutbacks In Government Grant Support

Many fear that the 1993 NIH allocation is likely to curtail-- if not wipe out altogether--some current and envisioned projects Date: April 27, 1992 WASHINGTON--Scientists in the United States research community are distraught over the president's 1993 budget for the National Institutes of Health, put before Congress last month. Specifically, they are troubled by funding adjustments that trim basic research grants to below what they consider adequate amounts to support their investigations. Adding to their displeasure is an expected decrease in the number of new individual investigator-initiated grants to be awarded and the reduced chances they will have of being funded at all by NIH in fiscal year 1993. "These budgetary adjustments are just another reminder that science is under siege. And, for the first time in 33 years, 30 states have reduced their support for public higher education. These are both chilling messages to the bench scientist," contends John Howe, president of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. National Institutes of Health director Bernadine Healy and NIH's individual institute and center directors presented the president's 1993 budget request for their agency to considerably less than a packed House appropriations subcommittee in March. The hearings came at a time when House members were distracted by alleged check bouncing, congressional redistricting, and a spate of retirement announcements. Of the 12 regular members of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee (L/HHS), which oversees distribution of appropriations funds to the agencies under its auspices--including NIH--only the chairman, William Natcher (D-Ky.), and ranking minority member Carl Pursell (R-Mich.); Louis Stokes (D-Ohio); and Joseph Early (D-Mass.) attended consistently. When the time comes to do this again next year, for the 1994 budget, NIH officials will have a new audience to inform and appeal to for funding on both the Senate and House appropriations L/HHS subcommittees. The House L/HHS subcommittee already is slated to lose at least three members. During the two weeks of NIH hearings, Pursell, a staunch supporter of the National Center for Nursing Research, announced his intention not to seek reelection because of redistricting. Earlier, Edward Roybal (D-Calif.) announced that he will retire at the end of this term; and Vin Weber (R-Minn.) recently announced his retirement. While all members of the subcommittee are up for reelection, of deepest concern to NIH advocates is the campaign of Early. Early has been NIH's chief appropriations advocate in the House and the representative most deferred to on questions relating to NIH. Massachusetts redistricting is still in the hands of the courts, and should the state ultimately lose a seat, Early faces a tough fight. For the first time, he has strong Republican opposition and, most critically, no one can predict the impact of his name being listed with others as offenders in the House check-bouncing scandal. In the Senate, the appropriations L/HHS subcommittee, chaired by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), will lose two members, Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and Brock Adams (D-Wash.), to retirement. The ranking minority member of the committee, Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), is facing a tough election challenge. On the Democratic side, Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) and Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.) are up for re-election, but both are felt by political observers to have a good chance. Should Specter lose, there is speculation that Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who has the least seniority on the Republican side of the subcommittee, could move up to the ranking position because Republican members Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), and Phil Gramm (R-Texas) all have other committee assignments they may not want to give up to take the ranking minority position on the L/HHS subcommittee. The president's FY 1993 budget of $9.3 billion for NIH was presented to the House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee (L/HHS) over a 2 1/2-week period in March by NIH director Bernadine Healy and individual institute and center directors. A presentation to the Senate subcommittee is not yet scheduled. The hearings were sparsely attended by subcommittee members (see story on page 4). Overall, in the president's proposal, the NIH budget received an increase of $441.6 million, or 4.9 percent more than was appropriated by Congress for 1992, but less than the 5.4 percent increase in the Biomedical Price Index (BRPI), an index that is used as an inflation marker for science. Details of the budget show that investigator-initiated research project grants will continue as the highest priority of and the primary funding mechanism at NIH. Under the budget proposal, research project grants are slated to be funded at $5.2 billion, an increase of 7.1 percent over the 1992 level. By contrast, most of the NIH officials testifying informed the subcommittee members that many other programs at the agency--such as R&D contracts, research centers, and training--are, some for the second year, funded at either 1991 or 1992 levels. Much of the subcommittee's questioning focused on "budgetary adjustment" percentages. Known at one time as "downward negotiations," the adjustments are individual cuts in competing research project grants made at several levels during consideration of grant proposals, including at study sections and advisory council meetings and by institute professional staff. Principal investigators can expect their NIH competing research project grants to receive individual budget adjustments in FY 1993 that reduce their funding by from six percent to 23 percent, depending on the institute or center. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, testified that in his institute the adjustment is averaging 21 percent because he has a 21 percent funding shortfall to make up between the requirements of the congressionally proposed Financial Management Plan and the money appropriated for the institute by the administration. Thoru Pederson, president and scientific director of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Mass., calls the cuts on grants a "most toxic thing" as young investigators watch their mentors struggle to keep their research teams together. "If they [NIH institutes] cut out a $30,000 postdoctoral salary, I have to go out and raise not only the original $30,000 that was cut, but an additional $30,000 to cover indirect costs," Pederson says. "This is not easy to raise from private individuals or foundations. This is affecting a very personal level of science." During her first day of testimony, Healy told the subcommittee that an agencywide shortfall of at least $121 million in the proposed budget will keep NIH from meeting the goals of the Financial Management Plan, now in its third year. The plan calls for, among other stipulations, 6,000 new investigator-initiated (R01) grants in 1993, of which the agency will only be able to generate 5,800. The shortfall also will result in no growth in centers, which, according to the plan, were to at least have kept pace with the BRPI. Another kind of shortfall was revealed in documents prepared by the agency to explain the details of its budget to Congress. They indicate that in FY 1992, the success rate for competing research project grants NIH-wide will be 28 percent, and the award rate will be about 29 percent. In FY 1993, however, both figures are predicted to drop, with the success rate estimated to be 26.4 percent and the award rate estimated at 27.3 percent. But the biggest shortfall will be in the area of training, specifically in the number of trainees at U.S. research institutions and their pay, which, under the financial management plan, was supposed to have kept pace with recommendations from periodic National Academy of Sciences studies, requested by Congress. Trainee stipends will be most affected. NIH stipends for predoctoral candidates remain at $8,800, while the National Science Foundation pays $14,000 and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration pays $16,000. Beginning in July, a limit will be placed on the amount of tuition subsidized by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) on predoctoral institutional training grants, institute director Ruth Kirschstein told the subcommittee. Kirschstein, in response to a question, also explained that NIGMS had requested from the administration $40.4 million for Minority Biomedical Research Support awards; $19.8 million for Minority Access to Research Careers programs and $5.7 million for Individual Predoctoral Fellowships for Minorities, for a total of $66 million, but was provided with only $47 million to fund them all. "Overall, the numbers in the president's budget are very disappointing," says David Moore, assistant vice president for government relations for the Association of American Medical Colleges. "There are so few additional dollars you're forced into tradeoffs, and as a result, you have to freeze everything at about the FY '91 level except for research project grants." "The [budget] figure is too low, and we're missing great opportunities," observes Donald Brown, director of the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, D.C., and president of the American Society for Cell Biology. Questioned as to what he considers the most serious systemic problem at his institute, Lawrence Schulman, director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, responded that there is not as much management flexibility as he would like to have in order to deal with special initiatives. R01s have been the highest priority, but there is "no give" --no room in the budget for other funding activities. Other programs have been funded at the same level as last year, reported Schulman. Responding to a question from the subcommittee, Kirschstein expressed concern about young investigators of three or four years coming up for their first grant renewal and looking for funds to expand their research. "If there is a percentage limit [a cap] on the increase that is allowed, it may not be possible to provide that exception," she said. Bruce Alberts, American Cancer Society Research Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California San Francisco, says: "Budget adjustments or downward negotiations should not be placed on a young investigator's new grant for $100,000. Nor should there be a rule that a first renewal can't go up more than a specific amount. Bigger grants or holders of multiple grants can have budget adjustments if they are done at the beginning and if necessary and warranted, but smaller grants do not have the room to allow for the cuts." Program balance is a concern shared by NIH officials, members of the subcommittee, and their staff. During the course of the hearings each expressed anxiety over the lack of balance in the way the 1993 budget is distributed among NIH programs. Operating under a limited budget and struggling to fulfill the requirement for a minimum of 6,000 new R01 grants while trying to maintain a number of other program activities, such as investigator training, centers, R&D contracts, and instrumentation, makes program balance a near impossibility, argue NIH institute directors. "If we have to operate at the same total requested by the president," asks an appropriations staffer, "would it be better to reduce the number of grants and centers in order to more adequately fund other mechanisms such as training and contracts?" Bradie Metheny and Shirley Haley write and publish the Washington Fax, a daily science-policy newsletter.

Researchers Decry Cutbacks In Government Grant Support

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