On December 3rd, NIH Director Francis Collins announced the selection of Richard Nakamura, Ph.D., as the new director of the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR). Dr. Nakamura has been serving as the acting director of CSR since September 2011 and has previously been both the scientific director and the deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Find more information in the NIH press release at: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/dec2012/od-03.htm.
Earlier today Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), Chair of the House Research and Science Education Subcommittee, asked the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review “regulatory actions that hinder our nation’s research universities.”
In his letter to GAO, the Chairman asked GAO to look at three general questions: What federal requirements, not limited to legislative mandates, reporting requirements, and regulations create reporting burdens for research universities; how research university requirements under OMB Circulars A-21, A-133, and Federal Acquisition Regulation 4.703 balance regulatory burden with accountability for federal funds; and what might be the potential benefits and disadvantages of modifying requirements, including those “that experts and universities have identified as most burdensome.”
Congressman Brooks wrote that it was evident, based on a recommendation in the National Research Council’s report on research universities, two hearings he convened in his subcommittee to follow up on the report, and additional conversations he held with the university research community, that “the current regulatory environment may be limiting the growth of fundamental basic scientific research.”
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today released a report mandated by the Sequestration Transparency Act (STA, PL 112-155) that detailed the impact of the $109 billion in cuts that will be imposed by the sequester in January if Congress does meet certain spending targets. According to the report the cuts would result in an 8.2 percent across the board spending cut in all non-exempt nondefense discretionary spending. Congress could reach an agreement to delay the cuts or replace them with targeted cuts by specific program areas.
OMB notes the estimates and classifications in the report are preliminary. If the sequestration were to occur, the actual results would differ based on changes in law and ongoing legal, budgetary, and technical analysis.
Under the assumptions required by the STA, the Pentagon would take the largest hit of any single department, with a 9.4 percent reduction in non-exempt discretionary spending that amounts to a $55 billion cut for defense programs. This could cut into defense-funded research programs. The non-exempt nondefense discretionary funding is our main concern and the report indicates an 8.2 percent reduction in this funding. The sequestration would also impose cuts of 2.0 percent to Medicare – mostly taken in cuts to to doctors and other medical providers, not beneficiaries – 7.6 percent to other non-exempt nondefense mandatory programs, and 10.0 percent to non-exempt defense mandatory programs. Medicaid is exempt from the sequester.
For NIH, the report indicates that $30.711 billion in discretionary budget authority would be subject to the 8.2 percent sequester, equal to $2.518 billion, and an additional $150 million in mandatory budget authority (for diabetes research) would be subject to a 7.6 percent cut, equal to $11 million. The total cut to NIH would equal $2.529 billion.
The report does not provide program-specific details for budget items under the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), such as the Title VII health professions programs. According to the report, however, discretionary programs at the agency will be subject to an 8.2 percent cut. Mandatory appropriations, such as funding provided through the Affordable Care Act for the Prevention and Public Health Fund and presumably the National Health Service Corps, will receive a 7.6 percent cut.
Funding for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is exempt from the sequester since it is provided through the evaluation tap as opposed to direct appropriations. However, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (which funds the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute) would be subject to a 7.6 percent cut, amounting to $30 million from the $390 million fund in FY 2013.
The complete report is available here.
The Office of Federal Relations is going through the remainder of the report now but I think it’s safe to assume that most of the non-health related research accounts will face an 8.2 percent cut if the sequester is implemented in January 2013.
To help improve health outcomes of patients who require emergency care, the National Institutes of Health has created a new Office of Emergency Care Research (OECR). The office is a focal point for basic, clinical and translational emergency care research and training across NIH. Although OECR will not fund grants, it will foster innovation and improvement in emergency care and in the training of future researchers in this field by:
The creation of OECR is the culmination of more than five years of discussions between NIH and the emergency medicine community. OECR also responds to reports about the nation’s emergency medical system issued in 2006 by the Institute of Medicine.
Read more here.
Late last week, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee approved by voice vote the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act (S 810) that would ban “invasive” research on chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans, or gibbons. The bill prohibits any research that “may cause death, injury, pain, distress, fear, or trauma” to the animal, including drug testing, restraining, tranquilizing, anesthetizing, isolation, social deprivation, and other activities. A substitute amendment by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sen Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), was approved that would allow research after the ban goes into effect if the Health and Human Services Secretary finds that research on great apes necessary to combat unforeseen diseases and a task force reviews and authorizes such research. The House companion bill, HR 1513, awaits consideration by the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee.