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President Donald Trump released a budget proposal on 3/16/17 which calls for a $6 billion dollar cut in funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or 20% of the NIH's total budget.
The NIH uses more than 80% of its budget to provide grant money to university, hospital, and research center scientists who study relevant public health issues. The NIH is the major funding source for research on cancer, asthma, diabetes, autism and developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's Disease, as well as many other debilitating diseases.
NIH funding in its current configuration is inadequate to provide scientists with the tools and training that they need to combat these problems. Lack of funding has left many highly trained and qualified scientists with little or no resources to conduct their work which in many cases had strong potential to make significant advances in human health and medicine.
The proposed budget cut would paralyze biomedical research; Both ongoing research progress as well as new and innovative research will be halted.
These cuts will directly result in fewer advances in medicine. The proposed cuts will also alter the trajectory of science, as they stand to decimate the funding which is necessary for the training of new scientists. This will result in a reduction in the number of highly skilled biomedical experts in this country.
Please do not allow this to happen. The NIH budget needs to be increased, not slashed, if we consider health a priority in this country.
