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(Circulation. 1995;92:278.)
© 1995 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Increased NIH Funding No Longer Sacrosanct

Claudia Louis, MBA; Scott Ballin, JD

From the American Heart Association, Office of Public Affairs, Washington, DC.

	Introduction

 
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has always enjoyed a sacrosanct status on Capitol Hill. Commonly referred to as the "crown jewel" by the members of the powerful House and Senate Appropriations Committees, the NIH has always benefited from increased funding—albeit short of resources needed to take full advantage of all research opportunities—while some other valuable federal programs were cut or level-funded.

Even President Clinton quickly learned the preferred status of the NIH on Capitol Hill. Both the House and the Senate soundly defeated Clinton's attempts in his first budget to slash funds for several NIH institutes, including budgets for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Congress not only rejected the President's proposed cuts but also provided each institute with an appropriation above that of the biomedical research inflation index. The President's subsequent budgets have called for NIH funding increases—albeit again insufficient to take full advantage of all research opportunities.

With the advent of the "Contract With America," the tax-cutting component—not the NIH—became the crown jewel in the House of Representatives. In an effort to produce a balanced budget by the year 2002, both the House and the Senate Budget Committees placed the NIH on the chopping block. The House Budget Committee called for a 5% cut ($566 million) in NIH funding for FY 1996 and then a freeze in research funding at the FY 1996 level through 2000. The rationale for cutting NIH funding was based on the fact . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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