On February 7, the National Institutes of Health announced that they were cut off immediately About 4 billion dollars per year In financing for biomedical medical researchers in the country. This step will reduce the share of the National Institutes of Health paid for “indirect” costs – management, management and employment maintenance – to 15 percent, and reduce them The historical rate is almost halfOvernight.
In this announcement, the National Health Institutes said that approximately $ 35 billion spent the financing of 300,000 researchers across the country in 2023, 9 billion dollars went to indirect costs. He said that the transition to an indirect cost rate is less, put them more walking with those that were placed in their place by the special foundations.
On February 10 in response, 22 states Federal lawsuit filed“To protect their states and their inhabitants from illegal work by the National Institutes of Health (‘NIH’) that will destroy monetary public health research in universities and research institutions in the United States.
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Donald Trump suggested dropping the NIH indirect cost rate 10 per cent in 2017But I faced Congress resistance. As was the case at the time, the recently proposed cuts arose Wide criticism Of the scholars who say that Patients suffering from exposing them The American strategic advantage in research. “Frankly, this means that the life of my children and my grandchildren – and perhaps you – will be shorter and sick.” CNN said.
The indirect costs of eating in laboratory grants for a long time She raised complaints Of the scholars, however 2014 nature analysis He concluded that “in general, the data supports officials’ assurances that their actual recovery of indirect costs is often less than their negotiating rates.”
American scientific He spoke to David Scortton, President of the American Medical Colleges Association, which represents all medical schools that have been crashed in the United States, about this transformation and its effects on medicine.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How does this affect people who may have never heard of granting the national “indirect” national institutes before, but those who get sick or know people can benefit from better medicine?
So the idea of biomedical medical research is multi -faceted. Some aim to help understand the way of life. Over the course of a contract of research, it led to the idea that Messenger RNA, which is a basic brick of biology, for example, can be used already as a vaccine platform. That knowledge was very essential, very essential, and in the end it was fed by the speed of warp and the development of vaccines against Covid. This is one thing.
Then there are research projects that may be called applied research, such as clinical experiences of cancer. An unfortunate person with cancer, and basic research has shown that the new approach, such as immunotherapy, which mocks the immune system to fight cancer cells, may help. We need to know this, so it goes to human and clinical experiences. These clinical experiences are also research projects. Then there are research projects related to diagnosis of diseases. Do not treat it. Some research has been conducted early in my career to treat medical images from the cardiovascular system. The idea there was to develop better diagnostic techniques that could lead to a faster way to diagnose a disease. Until you know the correct treatment.
It is clear that all of these have different requirements. Basic research often requires a complex and costly laboratory, a laboratory of the correct type of water, facilities and capabilities. In this laboratory, there can be five research groups, and they all study different questions. Therefore, the individual research groups, which are carrying out their individual projects, will advance [NIH] Funding. For the total laboratory itself, for the cost of its operation, because all these things, all of these things, can sometimes be attributed to any one project, because it really applies to all projects. Thus, the process of the material laboratory, the cost of the utility, and the supports libraries, is considered an attachment and an administrative cost and sometimes indicated as indirect costs
Decades ago, the federal government reached the idea that it will work periodically, carefully, review the medical colleges or universities that were researching to know the amount of money they already spend on things like high -tech LAB [equipment]High speed data processing, safety, data storage. These are the things that are compensated through facilities and administrative costs or indirect costs.
To clarify this, these costs are needed to conduct research.
These are all vital costs for operating laboratories in universities. They are not things like an individual pipette. They are jobs, and libraries or data centers say, and the things you need to run the laboratory. The reason is that the federal government has an accurate auditing system is that it is recognized that the direct grant itself really funds the specific problem that is studied. But you need this infrastructure to study many problems. So no, it’s not a decoration.
So what happens when you cut this type of financing?
In fact, if the administrative costs of the facility are very severe as the national institutes of the national institutes announced, the laboratories will appear literally. The search will stop. The march of knowledge is that someone, a friend, a friend, a neighbor, a workshop, needs to survive from illness, diagnose or move forward in his life after an accident, whatever the matter, anything that might be, They were suffering Because the search will not be able to continue. The indirect costs are not decoration, and the granting of national health institutes does not pay the full cost of conducting research for this reason.
This is the intention, right? The idea for decades behind NIH, which pays this grant, was building vital medical research in the United States, which has become. These indirect costs are the way we did it.
This is completely true. But the Foundation has not only been built for the sake of bragging rights. It was built to serve the American people.
What do you do to compare with indirect cost rates to grant the foundation in the announcement of the National Institutes of Health? Is this a fair comparison?
Our Something on the Internet about thisBut a few high points: institutions often allow more flexibility from the federal government to allow administrative expenses. This is the comparison of apples and oranges. Institutions often have a research concentration that may differ from the federal government. When you think about the differences-in other words, what the institution pays as a direct cost will not be the federal government-it shows you about it, it shows a face-to-face comparison, the prices are not very different.