Tom Harkin: “I commend Senator Specter for his many years of hard work, his efforts, and his success in increasing the funding for…”

“I commend Senator Specter for his many years of hard work, his efforts, and his success in increasing the funding for the crown jewel of the Federal Government, and that is the National Institutes of Health. Certainly, no one has fought harder and longer to ensure that our National Institutes of Health get the funding they need for the cutting-edge research that is saving so many lives. It was under Senator Specter's leadership that we embarked upon a program to double the NIH funding over 5 years. People said it could not be done, but we did it. Now we are up there and there seems to be some idea that somehow since we did that--the reason we did that was that NIH had fallen so far behind in the number of peer-reviewed grants that were being approved and funded. So we got them back up to where they were at least 20 years ago. Some think now we have them up there, we do not have to fund them anymore and we can start falling back again. The purpose of the Specter amendment is to bring the NIH up and keep them on a track that will not allow them to fall back again. The Senate bill will increase funding for NIH by $1 billion; that is 3.7 percent. It will be the smallest percentage increase for NIH since 1995. This is the wrong time to put the squeeze on NIH funding.”