Science Policy News

ASPET Joins Organizations Supporting Funding Growth for NIH

ASPET is one of about 400 members of the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research, which includes organizations representing patients, scientists, health professionals, research and academic institutions, educators, and industry. The Ad Hoc Group commends Congress for making the annual funding growth for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a national priority. NIHfunded biomedical, behavioral, social, and populationbased research improves our understanding of fundamental life and health sciences, equips the nation to combat both known and unprecedented health threats and converts the hope of improved health into a reality for patients and their families. The Ad Hoc Group points out that the federal investment in this lifesaving work in labs across the country also has a multiplier effect in local and regional economies. The work catalyzes new industries, enhances the United States’ global competitiveness, establishes viable career paths for aspiring scientists of diverse backgrounds and generates other high-quality jobs across the country.

To promote the sustained, robust growth necessary to make consequential progress against pressing health challenges in fiscal year (FY) 2023, the Ad Hoc Group recommends an increase in funding for programs. The group is requesting at least $49.048 billion (about $150 per person in the U.S.) for the NIH base budget, representing an increase of $4.1 billion over the comparable FY 2022 funding level (an increase of $3.5 billion or 7.9% in the NIH appropriation plus funding from the 21st Century Cures Act for specific initiatives).

In addition, the group strongly urges lawmakers to ensure that any funding for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) supplements the group’s $49 billion recommendation for NIH’s base budget, rather than supplants the essential foundational investment in the NIH. Further, the coalition supports the president’s proposal to supplement NIH’s budget with additional mandatory funding to propel the pace of pandemic response and readiness.

ASPET Joins WHAM-backed Resolutions to Expand Women’s Health Research

Along with more than 25 other leading health organizations, ASPET joins Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) in calling for Congress to accelerate women’s health research. Because women are more than 50 percent of the U.S. population, diseases that disproportionately affect women should be at the forefront. The medical research gender gap is not only a detriment to women’s health, but it is also holding back the American economy.

Senator Tammy Duckworth and Representative Jan Schakowsky recently introduced a resolution highlighting new data from The WHAM Report that shows clear disparities in funding and builds the economic case for change, showing that small investments have outsized economic returns. Adding $300 million for research focused on women across just three disease areas will bring back $13 billion to our economy. ASPET is proud to support this effort to drive change.

ASPET and the Friends of the VA Call for $980M for Medical and Prosthetic Research

ASPET has joined about 100 organizations requesting an 11 percent increase, or a total of $980 million, to fund many important programs through a spending bill supporting America’s veterans. The Friends of the VA (FOVA) is urging Congress to continue its continual growth in the VA research program without recissions. FOVA’s FY 2023 budget recommendation for the VA ensures meaningful growth above inflation to address long-term health impacts of COVID-19, health disparities, and increase clinical trials access. At the same time, the additional funding will help renew support for groundbreaking programs like the Million Veteran Program (MVP), VA’s participation in the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, and research on chronic and emerging needs of the nation’s veterans.

Increased funding for the VA research program will also support researchers as they recover from slowed research progress during the pandemic and allow for additional investments to support the strained IT capacity through computational science purchases to enhance the collection and use of big data. Sustained and predictable funding growth for VA research is imperative to help ensure the best return on investment in improving the health of veterans and all Americans.

FOVA recommends the funding to invest in physical and IT research infrastructure that is needed to support research with state-of-the-art facilities, technology and equipment that have not been upgraded for decades. For FY 2023, more than $200 million was estimated to correct all deficiencies; however, FOVA is seeking at least $100 million to address the most pressing problems.

ASPET Supports NIH’s DEIA Agency-wide Strategic Plan Framework

ASPET offered several suggestions in comments to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in response to its Request for Information on its framework for an agency-wide strategic plan to address diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). ASPET is committed to identifying and dismantling barriers to the full participation of its membership in the biomedical sciences workforce. The overall goal is to create more opportunities for marginalized populations to train at NIH and then to provide an inclusive environment for them to thrive and develop as leaders and scientists. Opportunities would include increasing the diversity of advisory panels, webinars, symposia and training sessions.

Another area where DEIA principles are needed is in the enrollment of patients for clinical trials. Consideration and inclusion of diverse genetic, ethnic, metabolomic, and proteomic backgrounds is important to best understand what constitutes a healthy state for an individual and for investigating the safety and effectiveness of interventions in a population.

As part of its DEIA strategic plan, ASPET encourages NIH to explore the interrelation more fully between culture and medicine. The use of natural products to cure ailments and diseases is well-documented, and modern methods of drug discovery that isolate active compounds owes a great debt to this cultural knowledge. But the use of natural products in drug discovery poses many challenges (e.g., diversification of possible therapeutic lead compounds by the derivatization of a promising isolated natural product compound), and their use by large pharmaceutical companies has been declining for decades. This decline is occurring despite the screening of only a fraction of the planet’s biodiversity for biological activity. Natural products can help us understand human health and development of therapeutics and learn from other cultures to guide us in our search for new ways to fight disease.

Visit https://www.aspet.org/aspet/advocacy to learn more.

2022 Washington Fellows

The 2022 Washington Fellows were recognized at the 2022 ASPET Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology in Philadelphia. They participated in a virtual advocacy training in preparation for virtual Capitol Hill meetings with their congressional representatives and staff. Following their day on Capitol Hill, the Fellows gathered for an in-person awards dinner at the start of the annual meeting.

The Washington Fellows program is designed to prepare early career scientists interested in science policy to learn and become more engaged in public policy issues. For more information, visit https://www.aspet.org/aspet/advocacy/aspet-washington-fellows-program.

The ASPET Fellows Nominations are Open Deadline is July 22, 2022