ASH expresses concern for federal budget cuts to health care

A new report released by the Coalition for Health Funding, supported by the American Society of Hematology, outlines the potentially devastating effects of deep budget cuts to federal health programs, the society announced in a press release.

The Coalition for Health Funding (CHF), a collective of more than 90 public health advocacy groups, compiled the report after soliciting input and firsthand stories from scientists, public health advocates and others regarding the effect of congressional budget cuts to their research.

The report, titled “Faces of Austerity: How Budget Cuts Hurt America’s Health,” describes the human costs of congressional austerity measures in recent years. These include:

Hindrance of scientific innovation;
Deterrence of a new generation of scientists from careers in research;
Blockage of access to important health and social services; and
Undermining of government health agencies.

Among the public health agencies affected by these cutbacks is the NIH, which has struggled with a decade of flat funding. In the report, two ASH members detailed how the decreased NIH funding, as well as a 5% budget cut, have forced the closing of labs and limited the development of important future treatments.

“Most people I know have been affected — their research funding has decreased and, consequently, so has the size of their laboratories, because they cannot afford to employ the same number of staff,” Debra Newman, PhD, a researcher at BloodCenter of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said in the press release. “Talented investigators have started to leave research and go on to other things because they can’t support a research operation without money to run it.”

Another contributor to the CHF report was Christopher Porter, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, who described how he was denied funding in 2013 due to cutbacks, despite a high scoring NIH grant application. Porter discussed the disappointment of having to put such a promising project on hold.

“My lab had been able to report exciting preliminary data, but we really needed supplemental funds to keep this project moving,” Porter said in the press release. “While our initial application to NIH scored high enough to have received funding in previous years, it was not within the current funding range.”

To address this lack of support for important research, ASH in 2013 begin offering the ASH Bridge Grants, which are awarded to talented investigators denied NIH funding due to fierce competition in light of austerity. The funding is designed to “bridge” the promising investigators, carrying them through to their next NIH grant.

Linda J. Burns

ASH emphasized, however, that although such grants might temporarily mitigate the problem, they are not a substitute for the crucial NIH funding that has been cut. In the release, ASH expressed concern that if these funding cuts continue, they will drive away many gifted established and emerging researchers from a career in hematology research, causing innovation to suffer in turn.

“ASH is pleased to join CHF in presenting the very real and drastic effects of austerity through this eye-opening report,” ASH President Linda J. Burns, MD, of the University of Minnesota, said in the press release. “When biomedical research is under-funded, everybody loses. Scientists are forced to slow or suspend research because they no longer have the resources to continue searching for new treatments, and even cures, for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. We continue to urge congress to support a balanced approach to deficit reduction that does not include further cuts to critical biomedical research and public health and safety programs.”

“Faces of Austerity” can be viewed online at www.cutshurt.org.