Clinton Strikes Out on Health Research
The president's budget this week boasts of the Clinton commitment to biomedical research by generously funding the National Institutes of Health budget.</br></br>It "renews the commitment" that the president made to vastly expanding biomedical research. This funding, the administration notes, has "made the United States the world leader in medical research."</br></br>If you buy that rhetoric then you can accept the president's definition of "is" -- as in there "is no sexual affair" -- or "alone" -- as in whether he was "alone" while having oral sex.</br></br>The truth is the president has beaten an unconscionable retreat in his NIH budget. Last year, prodded by outside groups like Research America, a bipartisan group of legislators committed themselves to doubling the health-research budget over the next five years. The first installment was a 15% hike to $15.6 billion for the current fiscal year. In signing that legislation, the president praised it as a "critical downpayment" for his 21st-century research fund for America, and while he proposed a 50% hike over five years, he indicated support for doubling that budget.</br></br>In the 2000 budget, however, he seeks only a 2% increase, not even enough to keep pace with inflation; this would be the smallest increase in the NIH budget this decade. Health-research experts say this budget would stifle the NIH's momentum, lessen the prospects for major breakthroughs in the next decade, leave scores of promising grant proposals unfulfilled and discourage bright young scientists from entering the biomedical research field.