NIH Budget

[Adam R Wende]

I know this isn't running related, but it related to "current events, or your personal life"...

Hi All,

I know a few of you are not in the US so this does not pertain to you.

However, for everyone that is a voting citizen please help out US researchers.

As some of you know I do research for a living here in Utah.  What you may not realize is that whatever goes on in the government regarding the NIH budget reflects on my ability to maintain a salary, my career, my livelihood. Please consider going to the following website: http://wh.gov/81O

There you will be asked to register, they will send a confirmation e-mail and ask you to "sign" the petition to increase the NIH budget to $33 billon. The current proposed flat NIH budget will close labs nationwide, kill good-paying jobs, damage our worldwide medical research dominance, and hurt state economies.

Thank you, Adam

[Jake Krong]

Done.

It only takes 10 seconds to sign the petition. Maybe the NIH will give the entire extra $3 billion to Adam, and he'll split it w/ the rest of the blog 

[Adele Kimbrough]

Adam,  I just signed the petition, too.  Thanks for the alert, and good luck with your job and your running!  - Adele

[Adam R Wende]

Jake, If they give me $3 billion I'll find a way to expand my diabetes research back into exercise. There are an infinite number of ways to explore exercise. We know it is the best prevention to so many diseases and I'm sure I could find some willing participants here on the blog to show that their running keeps them healthy. For now if they would even give me 0.03% of that I'd have a way to fund a lab, pay my salary and hire two additional people for the next five years. For those paying attention, depending on how the $3 billion is divided it could theoretically pay for 9,000 jobs for 5 yrs each.

Thank you both for your support and feel free to pass along to other people.

[Bonnie]

I feel your pain Adam ... we are in the same boat.  Although I don't work in your area, I work in colon cancer prevention research.  We submitted an application for continuing renewal for huge (multimillion) grant last May that scored a 24 and still might not get funded, and even if it does we won't know until after our current grant runs out ... it is a large portion of my salary (luckily I teach so I will still have some salary from that but I am losing some of my salary, kind of like getting a pay cut). 

Times are tough in scientific research right now. 

I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you ...

[Adam R Wende]

That is funny, in the sad sense. I also scored a 24 on my grant. Any of the last 5yr it would have been funded but this year they dropped the payline from 30 to 19!!! My fingers are crossed that things will improve throughout the year but I'm not getting my hopes up.
Good luck to you too and hopefully this petition will work and help ease the pain a little.

[Michelle Lowry]

I just did it. It took a couple of minutes to wait for an email, perhaps because I am in HK?  I also posted it on my FB. Thanks Jake for the heads up on your blog.

[jtshad]

It is really tough times for the entire federal budget.  All of the agencies in the executive branch are facing hard times and hard decisions.  We need to fund programs that benefit all the people in our nation and have a true potential to make a difference, like these types of programs.

We need to elect new congressional representation, cut out earmarks, get our Congressional branch and executive branch to start thinking about what is best for the nation and not just their state and their pocket book and PAC.  And we need to have the citizen's start asking again what they can do for their country and not what the country can do for them...we can't afford handouts to those who don't want to contribute (or shouldn't get handouts because they are not citizens!) so we can get back to the business of the important things the government needs to focus on.   As a federal employee, my job is to ensure that we are using the taxpayers money on the truly necessary things and spending the money wisely and paying for safe and effective performance of truly value added work....we see way to much money going to things (bridges to nowhere, parking lots in Texas, english as a second language classes, etc.) that we need to stop spending money on.

Here is a prime example of what we are both talking about:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/28/report-government-wasting-tens-billions-dollars-annually-on-duplication-overlap/

Why would the federal government give a $50K grant for the follow:

"At the same time, just this year the Department of Agriculture announced a nearly $50,000 federal grant was being doled out to a private potato chip company in New York. According the proposal, this money would be used to overhaul their media strategy and raise
brand awareness and consumer knowledge -- essentially encouraging people to buy and consume potato chips," he said, noting that potato chips sales in the United States exceed $6 billion annually."

We really need our taxpayers money paying for this?

[Bonnie]

Just to clarify, in case anyone is still interested in signing the petition, both Adam and I work in health research. Health research is funded by NIH, this has nothing to do with what Fox news is talking about.

I am sure there are all kinds of government spending that is much worse examples than that grant.  While not ideal, 50K is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of dollars that go to farm subsidies (or underwrites high fructose corn syrup production).

[Nate Page]

Thanks for signing the petition.  As a Biomed researcher (Pharm Sci, Protein Therapeutics and Cardiovascular Pharmacology) I also depend on adequate NIH funding (though my mentor now and myself, as a PI, later).  The funding lines are getting crazy competitive.  Good luck Bonnie and Adam on your grant submissions!

[Adam R Wende]

It amazes me how few people have signed. I know people don't like to spend money or pay taxes but they sure like to have medicine available when they are sick. NIH funded research is where that comes from. Yes drug companies develop the discoveries for commercial use and make a few on their own but the vast majority of new findings come from academic centers which for the medical sciences is primarily NIH funded...

I did get good news yesterday and my grant will be funded. However, there are plenty of other people out there that are caught on the bubble and the relatively very modest increase listed in this petition should still be considered if we as a nation are going to stay in the lead for scientific discovery, help the sick and try to improve quality of life.

[Rob Murphy]

Sadly it doesn't surprise me Adam. Modern conservatism doesn't trust science and associates it with a liberal, Godless agenda - global warming, evolution etc. Things that used to be no-brainers are now controversial.

Congratulations on your funding.

[Adam R Wende]

It is funny that you mention Godless. I just had a conversation, 5 minutes ago with two other recipients of the award I now have. We were discussing how none of the three of us see a conflict between our science and our faiths. Each of us from a different Christian upbringing... The question I always ask back to those who have a problem with science and trying to find answers to lives problems is if you believe in God then why did he give us brains if not to use them...

[Michelle Lowry]

Congratulations Adam!

[Adam R Wende]

Well the petition did not make its signatures. It needed 25,000 and hit ~24,400... Only ~600 shy of the goal. I feel bad because even though my grant ended up being funded I know a number of other very important projects were not funded. Thank you to those who showed your support. Hopefully the economy approves soon for everyone, government funded and private sector alike.