Dan Coats: “I have raised, on a number of occasions, my concerns that we are making decisions about which diseases, which research…”

“I have raised, on a number of occasions, my concerns that we are making decisions about which diseases, which research centers at NIH receive the funds. We are making that decision, I think, in well-intended ways, in ways that we hope will direct funds to provide breakthroughs and better research and hopefully cures for some of these diseases, yet I have been concerned we are doing it on a piecemeal basis. I am concerned that those organizations which have the greatest lobbying clout, who have been able to contact the most Senators or Congressmen, the ones who have generated the most support at home or who are best organized have become those that are rewarded by passage of legislation like this, and that those who do not have the lobbying expertise, the lobbying clout, do not have the same kind of friends in Congress that others have and end up being shorted. As a consequence, we are making decisions on the basis of anecdotal evidence--and some scientific evidence--but on the basis of political decisions as much as scientific decisions.”