Arlen Specter: “The budget constraints have led to a cut in NIH funding in recent years. The proposed budget by the administration would…”

“The budget constraints have led to a cut in NIH funding in recent years. The proposed budget by the administration would cut NIH funding by more than $500 million. In one of the recent budget cuts, the National Cancer Institute, illustratively, was cut by some $50 million. In 1970, President Nixon declared war on cancer and, had that war been prosecuted with the same intensity as our other wars, cancer would have been cured. My chief of staff, Carey Lackman, a beautiful young woman of 48, died of breast cancer. One of my best friends, a very distinguished Federal judge, Edward Becker, of Philadelphia, chief judge emeritus, died within the year of prostate cancer. As is fairly well known, I suffer from Hodgkin's. I made a good recovery. All the tests are said to be symptom free. But I was for increasing NIH funding long before I had a personal problem. I have been on the Appropriations Subcommittee of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education since I was elected to the Senate in 1980 and have had the opportunity to chair the subcommittee. With the leadership of Senator Harkin and myself, NIH funding has been increased from some $12 billion to almost $30 billion. We are offering this amendment simply to restore NIH funding to where it would have been had there been an accommodation for biomedical inflation.”