The Chronicle of Higher Education: Colloquy

This discussion is closed. This is a transcript.

The NIH's new billions

Author: Colloquy Moderator
Date: 01-30-04 14:19

When Congress started a five-year effort to double the budget of the National Institutes of Health, NIH leaders and many researchers held high hopes that the money would expand university research, lead to promising new treatments for major diseases, and set the stage for a golden age of biomedical research. Today, the NIH budget stands at nearly $28-billion, but its grants remain heavily concentrated among established researchers and among a small number of the most elite research institutions. Some experts believe the NIH could have moved faster sooner to push the envelope of research and could have used the new funds to support more-innovative research that could have cured debilitating diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's. How have university scientists and public health benefited from this extraordinary increase in funds for biomedical research? Read more ...

You can also read excerpts from an interview with Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health since May 2002.

Re: The NIH's new billions

Author: DE Teodoru
Date: 02-20-04 20:24

NIH cannot turn the money hungry university administrations into angels with renewed millions unless the profit motive is removed from research. This was Reagan's dumbest move and its effect can be seen in the utter lies and imbecilities on the issue of stem cell research, where lawyers for the universities go to testify, instead of scientistis, before Congress....It stinks a lot when the profit motive mucks up everything. The commission Bush created to deal with the ethics of this clonning research is a total failure because it never put in the forefront the profit motive as the ethical standard of science since Reagan.