主页 > 医药科学 >
【bio-news】Biomedical research faces flat budget for 2008
New York
The NIH faces a $500 million cut even before accounting for inflation.
With the US government's 2007 budget still in limbo, the Bush administration released its proposed 2008 budget on 5 February—and the news for biomedical research is universally bad.
The administration claims to boost funding for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $232 million in the 2008 proposal, but a closer look at the latest 2007 budget numbers reveals that the institute will effectively get a $500 million cut, even before accounting for inflation.
Worse, more than 10,000 NIH extramural grants, which usually run three to four years, are up for renewal in 2008, the biggest crop of renewals since budget declines began four years ago. That means an unusually large number of investigators will be competing for an unusually small pool of money.
"Certainly the biomedical research community has to be disappointed with the NIH budget that has declined in real terms since 2004," says Kei Koizumi, director of the budget and policy program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
With fewer than 18% of NIH extramural grants receiving funding and the average age of first-time grant winners topping 40, the future may be especially tough for young investigators (Nat. Med. 12, 1224; 2006).
"Senior research investigators who've had funding for 20 to 25 years are having to shut down their labs [and] young people are shunning biomedical research careers," says Leo Furcht, president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
For 2008, even the popular tactic of linking one's research to biodefense may fail. According to a AAAS analysis, the NIH biodefense budget, administered primarily by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, faces a 0.7% cut.
In 2006, the Bush administration approved minuscule increases or even cuts for funding of biomedical research. As Nature Medicine goes to press, however, the newly Democratic Congress is debating a bill that would rescue the 2007 NIH budget from the proposed $28.6 billion, bumping it up to $29.1 billion.
If that bill passes, the president's $28.8 billion proposal for NIH in 2008 would in effect be a cut from the 2007 levels. Counting a required payment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the institutes stand to lose $529 million in 2008.
With inflation, the NIH has lost about 12% of its total purchasing power since 2004, when a campaign to double the agency's budget ended. The nosedive the NIH has taken since then makes many observers question a new scheme to double the budget of the US National Science Foundation. The NIH cuts are in part funding that increase.
"While we applaud the efforts to shore up agencies who have not had as much attention in the recent past," says Furcht, "we would submit that it should not come at the expense of the NIH."
Published online: 28 February 2007.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n3/full/nm0307-228b.html
screen.width-333)this.width=screen.width-333" width=440 height=258 title="Click to view full budget.JPG (440 X 258)" border=0 align=absmiddle> 本人已认领该文编译，48小时后若未提交译文，请其他战友自由认领。 The NIH faces a $500 million cut even before accounting for inflation.
在偿还通货膨胀引起的损失之前，国立卫生研究院已经面对50亿美金的削减
With the US government's 2007 budget still in limbo, the Bush administration released its proposed 2008 budget on 5 February—and the news for biomedical research is universally bad.
当美国政府2007年的预算仍在进行当中，在二月五号布什政府准予发表对2008年预算的提议，且对生物医学研究的消息非常不利。 在偿还通货膨胀引起的损失之前，国立卫生研究院已经面对50亿美金的削减
当美国政府2007年的预算仍在进行当中，在二月五号布什政府准予发表对2008年预算的提议，且对生物医学研究的消息非常不利。
政府要求在2008年的提议中支援232亿美金给国立卫生研究院，但是密切关注最近2007年的预算数字可以看出研究所实际上将获50亿美金的削减，甚至在偿还通货膨胀引起的损失之前。
更糟糕的是， 1万多个国立卫生研究所的校外项目要在2008年时更新，这些项目一般都研究了3~4年 。自4年前预算开始衰减之前就获得了最大的更新成果。那意味着大量的研究者将不得不为相当少的资金而相互竞争。
美国科促会预算和政策规划部门主任Kei Koizumi说：“显然，生物医学研究院对国立卫生医学研究院的预算很失望，这个预算从2004年起就已经在下降。”
阅读本文的人还阅读：
作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-03-22 05:11
医学,生命科学网