Report ranks N.C. 7th in NIH funding

Consecutive years of tight budgets at the National Institutes of Health have jeopardized the United State's role in biomedical research and stunted economic growth in states such as North Carolina, according to a national health-care advocacy group.

Families USA, a group dedicated to affordable health care for Americans, pressed for more NIH funding in a report released today in Washington.

Among other findings, it ranks North Carolina seventh nationally in NIH grants in 2007 at $1 billion. Most of that money is spent at research universities in the Triangle.

That money supported 18,422 jobs statewide at an average salary of about $48,600, according to the group.

It also triggered additional spending in the state that totaled more than $2 billion.

NIH awarded $29 billion in grants nationwide in 2007.

The report is part of an ongoing effort by universities and health care groups to pressure Congress to increase NIH funding.

In March, Duke University joined Harvard, Vanderbilt, UCLA and other schools to make the same point.

Between 1998 and 2003, Congress doubled the annual budget for NIH. Prior to that period, funding rose by approximately 7.5 percent a year.

The Bush administration inherited the promise to double the budget when it came into office, but the president also made it clear there would be no additional significant increases once that goal was met.

Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cemented that position.

Protests since then have grown each year, including Thursday's report .

"An NIH budget that falls short of what's needed hurts labs, hospitals and communities," according to the Families USA report titled "In Your Own Backyard."

The report is scheduled for release today at www.familiesusa.org.