Should the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) allocate more research dollars for
cardiovascular diseases (CVD)? According to a recent
Institute of Medicine (IOM) study entitled "Scientific Opportunities
and Public Needs: Improving Priority Setting and Public Input at
NIH," many other diseases that claim fewer lives are funded at much
higher levels by the NIH.
The study was mandated by the US Congress, who do not regard themselves
as equipped to set the research-funding priorities of NIH, an agency
headed by a Nobel laureate in medicine, staffed by scientists, and
ideally advised by formal and informal groups of many of the nation's
leading researchers. However, for several reasons outlined in the
report (the increasing centralization of decision making in the NIH
director's office, for example), national nonprofit groups that
represent specific diseases have been turning more and more to
members of Congress, bombarding them with heartfelt and typically
legitimate arguments for more NIH research funding for specific
diseases.
And the result, according to the IOM report, is that some members of
the US Congress have questioned the NIH decision-making process. They
"point to widely different amounts of research funding per afflicted
person from one disease to another. ... They also note that the
largest amounts of NIH funding do not always go toward research on
diseases that cost the federal government the most through the Medicare
program," says the report.
The number of people afflicted by a disease is only one of several
factors that influence the decisions of the NIH
This article has been cited by other articles:
© 1998 American Heart Association, Inc.
Cardiovascular News
Dilemmas of NIH Funding for Cardiovascular Research
A. Babsky, N. Doliba, N. Doliba, A. Savchenko, S. Wehrli, and M. Osbakken
Na+ Effects on Mitochondrial Respiration and Oxidative Phosphorylation in Diabetic Hearts
Experimental Biology and Medicine,
June 1, 2001;
226(6):
543 - 551.
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
[PDF]