Political Quotes

“today I am introducing the Accelerating Biomedical Research Act. The bill allows more funding for the National Institutes of Health by allowing NIH funding to grow even while we continue to live under austere funding caps. NIH funding has been a bipartisan effort working with Democrats-- Senators Kennedy and Harkin, as well as Republicans--Senators Hatfield and Specter. We successfully fought to double NIH's budget from $13.6 billion in 1998 to over $30 billion today. We supported it to speed the transition of discoveries from science to treatment and maintain America's global competitiveness. But the NIH budget hasn't kept up with inflation. Its budget has been growing, but slowly. That means the NIH budget buys 20 percent less than what it did when the doubling was completed in 2003. Which means we are missing out. Missing out on potential treatments, potential breakthroughs, potential cures. We have no shortage of ideas. Scientists have ideas but they cannot test them without funding. What is the solution? We need to redouble our commitment to medical research. This bill creates a 6-year plan to put NIH back on stable ground. It is steady growth, it is predictable, and it is fiscally sound. The bill allows for new spending for NIH that does not count against the strict budget caps. So we can put more money into cures without taking it away from other compelling human needs funded within the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill. Why NIH?…”