Alex Palazzo is a postdoctoral fellow working in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School.
From Wednesday's Boston Globe - (I know it's a wee bit late): Setbacks for medical research (OpEd).
For the first time in three decades, federal funding for the National Institutes of Health was cut this year. The reduction, which followed two years of level funding, not only imperils the development of lifesaving scientific breakthroughs but also has a detrimental impact on regional economies that are dependent on innovation -- and New England is at the forefront....
From 1998 to 2003, federal investment in NIH doubled, with 15 percent increases each year. While budget realities make such continued growth unrealistic, NIH funding has been losing ground to inflation for two years, and researchers are already feeling the impact. The number of research project grants has declined each of the last three years, the amount of an average research grant has declined 2 percent, and grant approvals have declined 19 percent. Level funding already has forced New England institutions to trim their research programs -- setting back research efforts and cutting jobs.
Things are bad, and I fear they will get worse.
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