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Squeaky Wheels: The Politics of Disease Research Funding
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11457 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1994 |
3,443 Words |
| Author
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Andrea Golaine Case
Andrea Golaine Case writes for and edits the publications of
the American Council on Science and Health in New York City. |
Précis The allocation of funds for disease research in the United States was for six decades almost exclusively the province of professional scientists, but that arena is now being invaded by pork-barrel politics and high-powered lobbying.
Legislators have begun to "earmark" large amounts of research funds for their own projects, thus overriding the discretion of scientists themselves.
For example, 80 percent of the current funding for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has been earmarked by congressmen, mostly for AIDS research. Not only does this put major constraints on NIH resources, but it hampers the effort to support the best research in a cost-effective manner.
In another example, the National Breast Cancer Coalition (NBCC) in 1992 organized a drive to increase the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) budget by $300 million for fiscal 1993. The lobbying effort secured a direct boost of $64 million in NCI's bottom line. Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Harkin, NBCC's chief supporter on Capitol Hill, seized on a dramatic new tactic and was able to convert $210 million of U.S. Army funds to cancer research. Bemused Army officials then had to reorient their thinking from developing missiles to studying cells.
Ultimately, many observers believe, the favoritism given to politically correct projects today at the expense of more basic and unglamorous science could have serious health implications for the future.
During the course of the twentieth century, one virulent, fearsome disease after another has been vanquished by the relentless advance of biomedical science.
Diseases that once killed thousands at an early age have been virtually eliminated. Simple drugs now cure bacterial infections that long ago caused certain death.
Yet the fundamental firepower of this crusade to turn back the tide of untimely death has been the humble, nuts-and-bolts process of the wise distribution of available research funds.
The chief mechanism involved in this distribution has been peer review, in which panels of scientists distribute monies to their peers who work in what the panelists consider to be promising fields. Over the years, observers agree that
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