Congress: increase federal research funding for the National Institutes of Health

increase federal research funding for the National Institute of Health

Dear Members of Congress

I am writing to you today to implore you to support the House proposal to increase the 2012 National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget by 3.3% ($31.7 billion). Since the 1930’s, the NIH has been a fundamental supporter of basic biomedical research in the U.S. Funding from the NIH supports research in all 50 states. These awards are made to over 3,000 universities, medical schools, and research institutions, and they support more than 350,000 researchers. NIH funding to basic research has supported findings that were honored by 121 Nobel Prizes, including this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The nonprofit coalition United for Medical Research concluded that funding by the NIH in 2010 produced $68 billion in new economic activity, which is a greater than 100% return on our investment!

Some would argue that the private sector should take over some of the lost funding for academic, basic research. The sad fact is that the private sector does not support the type of basic research that the NIH does; they take the results NIH-funded research and apply it to drug development. In addition, many entities in the private sector are currently slashing their Research & Development (R&D) budgets! For example, Pfizer recently cut its R & D budget by 1.5 billion.

Consider the following numbers. For 2011 budget, U.S. spending on:
Social security was $2564 per citizen (20.8% of the budget)
Defense was $2203 per citizen (18% of the budget)
Medicare was $1569 per citizen (12.8% of the budget)
Medicaid was $1172 per citizen (7.8% of the budget)
NIH was $99 per citizen (0.8% of the budget)

I ask you – how would cutting the NIH budget solve our current deficit problem? Imagine the jobs we could create and the medical breakthroughs we could make by taking a few dollars of those appropriated for Social Security, Defense, Medicare, or Medicaid and using it to increase the NIH budget.

Can we really afford this frightening trend, especially at a time where the European Union and China are adopting a NIH-style research funding system and Chinese government support of R & D is currently outpacing our own. Sadly, the NIH budget in recent years has been stagnant, and the current NIH budget only supports half the research it did a decade ago. Supporting NIH funding is the best decision this country can make to create high technology jobs for our children (increasing our tax base) and to support life-changing medical advances (decreasing health care costs). Funding the NIH is a small investment that pays big dividends for our economy and our future.

Sincerely,

your name

[Your name]