"Do you want me to be honest?" replied the congressman. "The NIH has made a lot of unfulfilled promises, wasting billions of dollars in the war against cancer and trying to prevent heart disease." Our colleague responded, "We have made tremendous strides. For example, today's New York Times describes the discovery by investigators at Johns Hopkins University of a gene that has a major influence on the development of colon cancer. By screening for this gene, we should be able to detect colon cancer at a much earlier stage."
The congressman shot back: "That's my point; that's Johns Hopkins research--not NIH research." The congressman did not realize that the extramural grants program of NIH is the major source of funding for basic biomedical research at universities, medical schools, and research institutes throughout the United States.
A recent survey conducted by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) of ...
