WIKIMEDIA, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURYThe already slim budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is being further sapped by the government-wide sequester to the point that a whole generation of US scientists is at risk, according to agency director Francis Collins. After highlighting “exciting new initiatives” at the NIH and praising President Barack Obama’s $31.3 billion 2014 budget request for the agency, Collins bemoaned the belt tightening that the sequestration—a 10-year, across the board cut to discretionary funding mandated by the Budget Control Act—has set in motion.
“If the Budget Control Act-imposed caps on discretionary programs continue, and NIH funding is reduced proportionally over the next 10 years, funding will decline by about $19 billion,” Collins told the US Senate’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education last Wednesday (May 15). “The consequences will be harmful to scientific progress and to American leadership in science.”
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“At a time when global competition in the life sciences is intensifying, the American economy cannot afford to lose ground in scientific efforts that promote human health,” he said.
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