The biomedical-research community--joined by many members of Congress--was overwhelmingly in favor of the amendment. "The support for that bill this year was unlike anything I've seen," says Terry Lierman, president of Washington, D.C.based Capitol Associates Inc., a government-relations firm. But with health-care reform bills taken off the table, at least for the remainder of the year, there is no guarantee that the proposal will pass.
Harkin and Hatfield both are considered friends of biomedical research. As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, Harkin obtained an increase in the NIH budget from $7.89 billion in 1989 (when he took over the subcommittee chairmanship) to $11.34 billion in fiscal year 1995.
Hatfield, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, was instrumental along with Harkin in setting up nationwide centers for Alzheimer's research five years ago.
In addition, he wrote legislation setting up a ...
