NIH funding crucial, study says

Cuts hurt N.C., health group insists

Consecutive years of tight budgets at the National Institutes of Health have jeopardized the United States' role in biomedical research and stunted economic growth in North Carolina and other states, a health-care advocacy group said.

Families USA, an organization that focuses on affordable health care, pressed for more NIH funding in a report released Wednesday 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, the group said.

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

The NIH awarded $29 billion in grants nationwide in 2007.

The report is part of an effort by universities and health-care groups to persuade Congress to increase NIH funding. In March, Duke University joined Harvard, Vanderbilt, UCLA and other schools to make the point.

Between 1998 and 2003, Congress doubled the annual budget for NIH. Before that period, funding rose about 7.5 percent a year.

The Bush administration inherited the promise to double the budget when it came into office, but President Bush also made it clear that there would be no significant increases once that goal was met. Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cemented that position.

Concern about NIH budgets has grown each year.

"NIH funding has not kept up with inflation," said Ron Pollack, Families USA's executive director. "That has a stifling effect on state economies. NIH awards spur vital medical research while at the same time injecting millions of dollars into local economies."