Doug Bereuter: “this amendment requires the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to spend $12 million for the conduct of research…”

“this amendment requires the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to spend $12 million for the conduct of research on the comparative effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and safety of drugs, biological products and devices under their existing authorization. This is a priority-setting amendment that is intended to ensure that objective scientific research on prescription drugs continues or is accelerated in fiscal year 2004. This, unfortunately, may not be an increase in spending for this purpose, but the $12 million figure is the amount the agency estimates it currently spends on this effort to assess the efficacy of drugs. This amendment does not require new money to be spent. Instead, the amendment earmarks $12 million for the total amount yielded to what is called the AHRQ for such research. This Member wishes it could be more; and in fiscal year 2005, it should, pending good results, be dramatically increased. The amendment also demands accountability by requiring the agency to actually and productively spend such funds on this initiative.”