A budget bill that would reduce the National Institutes of Health budget by $1.6 billion over the next seven months would have long-term economic and health care consequences in the United States, warned Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and Chicago scientists on Sunday.
H.R.1, the budget appropriations bill for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 19. Among the $61 billion in spending cuts outlined in the bill is a 4.7 percent reduction in the NIH budget, which would take place over the seven months remaining in the fiscal year.
In a news conference at the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center at Northwestern University’s downtown campus, about 100 Chicago-area scientists joined Durbin in arguing against cuts in biomedical spending.
“We understand that we have to make cuts,” Durbin said. “But we need to make thoughtful cuts in spending. You don’t cut research; you don’t cut innovation. These are the things that not only make our lives better, they build our economy.”
Scientists from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Loyola University Medical Center and Children’s Memorial Hospital described the importance of federal funding for discovering and developing new, more effective ways of preventing and treating diseases such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. Over the past ten years, the number of new cancer cases in the U.S. has declined by 1 percent annually, and cancer deaths have declined by 1.6 percent over the same time period, said Michelle Le Beau, director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“This progress is the direct result of biomedical research, and this research is funded, for the most part, by the National Institutes of Health,” said Le Beau, the Arthur and Marian Edelstein Professor at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “I think our best hope for cancer and transforming medicine is discovery in biomedical research.”
Interrupting research for the sake of short-term reductions in the federal budget would disrupt promising research projects and create long-term consequences, speakers said.
“When you put these research projects on hold, you can’t ask the laboratory mice to take a nap,” Durbin said. “You can’t ask the cultures to stop growing — we’ll get back to you at the end of the fiscal year. And you can’t expect the professional researchers, the men and women who have dedicated their lives to medical research, to have certainty that next year they’ll have a job.”
Together, the University of Chicago and its partner NorthShore University HealthSystem received more than $300 million in NIH funding in fiscal year 2010, and are scheduled to receive another $300 million in the 2011 fiscal year. The funding supports nearly 1,600 jobs, some of which would be at risk if the House budget cuts are approved.
“A lapse in funding will result in dismantling our highly specialized research team, and this leads to a loss of capability, because it takes years to assemble these teams again,” Le Beau said. “These are individuals who have trained for years to apply their extraordinarily unique skills. They have families to support and bills to pay.”
Nationally, Durbin warned that cutting the NIH budget would reduce the proportion of research projects approved for funding from approximately 1 in 5 to 1 in 10. Researchers from Chicago’s academic medical centers said that decision would slow down progress on developing tomorrow’s new treatments, such as the application of genetics to medicine and the discovery of new targets for pharmaceuticals.
“A $1.6 billion reduction of support will have catastrophic consequences — stifling creativity, driving countless individuals from the field and derailing the remarkable momentum witnessed over the last decade,” said Steven Rosen, the Genevieve E. Teuton Professor of Medicine and director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. “The consequences are delaying medical breakthroughs that offer hope for our children and future generations.”
—Prof. Kunle Odunsi
