Not good:
The US still leads in biomedical research spending, and output measured by research publications, but it has been declining for over a decade. Funding for the NIH is now down to 2000 levels, taking inflation into account. NIH funding was doubled under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton; it should be doubled again.Worse, its budget has been slashed by another 10 per cent for the second half of this year under "sequestration", the US's austerity programme. And things are going to get worse. Sequestration will lead to an additional 9 per cent cut next year in overall government spending, and the non-profit Coalition for Health Funding reports that the House of Representatives is considering NIH cuts of a further 19 per cent, stopping work in progress and shutting down new ideas.Additional cuts will also strike the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the finger in the dyke against new pandemics – there is abad one fulminating right now in the Middle East. The CDC is in the process of cutting virtually all of its funding to schools of public health for research on epidemic preparation.
Thanks, Tea Parties!
By Andrew Feinberg
August 5, 2013 | New Scientist
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