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Casey Takes Up Specter’s Mantle on Medical Research Funding

By Laura Bonawits, Contributing Writer

When former Senator Arlen Specter stood on the Senate floor to give his farewell speech in December, he urged Congress to substantially increase funding for the National Institutes of Health. Now Senator Bob Casey is taking on the issue in full force. The Senator called on congressional leaders Friday to reconsider a proposed $1 billion budget cut to the National Institutes of Health for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year.

Last June, Sen. Casey championed an 11.9 percent increase in funding for the NIH, gathering the support of 21 senators. “This is an issue that Senator Casey has been working on for some time,” said Larry Smar, Sen. Casey’s spokesperson. “Senator Specter was certainly a champion of these issues.”

Former Senator Specter’s track record as a proponent for medical research funding is beyond compare. As Vice President Biden put it during an event for Specter last year, the Senator “has done more to advance the cause of medical research than anyone else in the history of American government.”

That record includes initiating an effort to legalize federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, securing tens of billions in funding increases for the NIH during his tenure on the Appropriations Committee (including a $10.4 billion allocation in the stimulus bill), to name a few.

“Health is our nation’s number one asset. Without your health, you can’t do anything,” Sen. Specter told NIH Medline Plus, a NIH publication, in the summer of ’08. “I believe medical research should be pursued with all possible haste to cure the diseases and maladies affecting Americans. I have said many times that the NIH is the crown jewel of the federal government—perhaps the only jewel of the federal government.”

Sen. Casey commended Specter’s career-long accomplishments during a tribute to retiring senators in December, highlighting his dedication to expanding resources for the NIH. “He helped to lead the effort to dramatically increase funding for the National Institutes of Health, that great generator of discoveries that cure diseases and create jobs and hope for people often without hope because of a disease or a malady of one kind or another,” Sen. Casey said.

The Arlen Specter Headquarters at the Centers for Disease Control

Last week, Sen. Casey wrote a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers. He delineated the negative impact that slashing funds for the leading institution of medical research could generate, including comprising the nation’s health and economy. “Such a cut would have a dramatic and negative effect on America’s ability to support some of the best biomedical research in the world,” Sen. Casey wrote.

He pointed out the economical damage that could ensue, like eliminating jobs, cutting important research short, and hindering innovative efforts in medical research. “Scientists and researchers across the country will have to close their labs and lay off their staff, which will force valuable research efforts to halt and discourage a new generation of doctors and scientists from pursuing medical research,” the senator wrote.

“An entire generation of researchers could vanish without sustained investment in the NIH.”

Where NIH funding winds up will ultimately depend on the budget battle between House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

2 Responses

  1. In a nation teetering on the edge of collaspe….Republicans are demanding draconian budget cuts without cause and effect, plundering of health programs that help people and directing social warfare on everyone who is not white, male, christian or heterosexual…..anyone voted for this, or were we voting for jobs, sound economic footing and efficient, functional government??

  2. somethings can’t be compromised, funding biomedical research is one of them. without it we won’t find new treatments and cures. how do we know which grant is going to be the key.

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