Word: nih
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...provides for a stronger Office of AIDS Research under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The office would have a full-time director appointed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and charged with developing "strategic plan for AIDS research throughout the NIH...
...While a few worry that it's a plan to trap and discredit them, most look at this as a chance to be vindicated after years of being called lunatics," says Jacobs. The medical community has been cooler. Though the office's $2 million appropriation is a pittance in NIH's overall annual budget of more than $10 billion, critics resent that any sum is being diverted from traditional research. Some carp that the office will be a refuge for quacks -- a charge Jacobs flatly denies. "We're not created to rubber-stamp questionable practices...
...even before its usefulness is determined. The policy has been heavily criticized within scientific circles and figured in the abrupt resignation last spring of Nobel-prizewinning geneticist James Watson as head of the Genome Project. Cohen speaks for many critics when he names the two big problems with the NIH approach: "The first is moral. You can't patent something that belongs to everyone. It's like trying to patent the stars. The second is economic. By patenting something without knowing the use of it, you inhibit industry. This could be a catastrophe...
...National Institutes of Health's new "strategic plan," which would, among other things, encourage scientists to work more closely with industry. To some observers, the reaction from the scientific community is little more than the pleadings of another special-interest group trying to preserve its privileges. "I thought NIH existed to meet the needs of the public," says agency director Dr. Bernadine Healy of the outcry over the new strategic plan. "They thought NIH was here to serve scientists...
...Administration earlier this year submitted a 1993 budget that would have increased science spending only 6.5%, to $28 billion, Congress for the first time in recent memory actually whittled down the Administration's request -- to a 2.3% increase. The budget freezes spending at many agencies, including NASA, and cuts NIH's funds (in inflation-adjusted dollars) 0.1%. Moreover, appropriations for some science agencies came attached with warnings that, in the future, simply requesting more money will no longer be considered a realistic solution to science's problems...