In less than one year, stem cell researchers will begin to tap into the $30 billion per year NIH budget that President Bush has locked away from them since 2001. The battle will be over. We will have won. No matter who wins the White House this year, it will be a candidate who supports stem cell research. Clinton, Obama, and John McCain all support federally-funded stem cell research.
However, the victory in this long-fought battle will be bittersweet if there is insufficient funding to pay for the newly allowed stem cell research. Without an increase in the NIH budget, the new stem cell initiatives will be underfunded, or will take money away from ongoing basic research that is necessary for stem cell work to succeed. It's a zero-sum game: As long as Bush's NIH cuts remain in place, his legacy of blocking stem cell research will continue.
But, there is something you can do today to help stop Bush's legacy and fund stem cell research as early as possible in 2009.
Bush and his supporters have used a three-pronged approach to impede biomedical research. First, they have limited education, particularly about evolution, in turn diminishing public support for science. Second, they have limited the work of publicly-funded scientists by editing reports, and by fencing off vast frontiers of research like stem cell biology as off-limits. Finally, Bush has limited NIH funding every year for six years, either holding NIH budgets flat or cutting funds, the first president since Nixon to do so. While NIH funding has held flat, inflation in biology has gone up at a rate of about 4% per year.
As a result, biomedical research is in a severe funding crisis, and it comes at a terrible time: we're living in one of the most exciting times for biology, with unprecedented possibility of rapid advances. China, Korea, Singapore, and Japan are investing heavily in the sciences and are on route to outpace the US and challenge our pre-eminence in technology. Meanwhile, patients here at home are having to wait for the cures that should have begun development 6 years ago -- and which of them can afford to waste that kind of time?
In January 2009, that wait should be over. Few things are certain in politics, but it is safe to say we will have a president who supports biomedical research in general, and who supports stem cell research in particular. But, the wait will continue until NIH receives the funding it needs. The 2009 budget is being decided now. The time to make your voice heard is now.
From an action alert today, released by the Society for Neuroscience:
An important letter is circulating in the House of Representatives requesting support for a 6.5 percent increase, or $1.9 billion, for NIH in FY2009. Please urge your Representative to sign this letter by sending a message through the SfN CapWiz system. This bipartisan letter, organized by Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA), David Reichert (R-WA), and others, is a counterpoint to the President's recent call for a sixth straight year of flat NIH funding. The letter closes on Friday, March 14, so act now!
In the long view, we have already won the battle on stem cells -- the research will be funded. Bush has been defeated. But he will get the last word -- an extra year of internecine squabbling at the NIH, short-changed research, and no funding available for stem cells -- unless you convince your Representative to start moving funds to NIH NOW so we can get it into researchers' hands as quickly as possible next January.
To contact your Representatives, click here. Tell them that you support stem cell research. Tell them that you support the basic biomedical research at NIH that's needed for stem cell research to succeed. Tell them to sign the Markey-Reichert letter by contacting Josh Lumbley in Rep. Markey's office at (202) 225-2836, or Jason Edgar in Rep. Reichert's office at (202) 225-7761.
And tell them one more thing. Tell them you vote.