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Coalition: Proposed cuts to global health investments a job-killer in US
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A group of more than 25 nonprofit organizations that advocate for global health research and development warned that the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to global health funding will imperil programs that have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States.
According to a new report co-authored by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), the U.S. invested nearly $14 billion in research and development for global health from 2007 to 2015, contributing to dozens of new technologies, diagnostics, vaccines, drugs and other products for infectious diseases.
Most of the money — including 89% in 2015 — has remained in the U.S., according to the group, creating almost 200,000 jobs and generating an additional $33 billion in economic output.
“It’s hard to imagine many other investments of taxpayer dollars that have provided such impressive returns,” Jamie Bay Nishi, director of the GHTC, said in a statement.
According to the GHTC report, U.S. investment since 2000 has played a pivotal role in delivering new drugs for malaria, meningitis, rotavirus and drug-resistant tuberculosis and has helped to develop vaccine candidates for Ebola and HIV.
However, according to the report, the Trump administration has proposed cutting the budget of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases by 23% and closing the NIH’s global health-focused Fogarty International Center, which trains researchers. It also has proposed broad cuts to global health programs at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. State Department and the CDC, the group said.
“The public investment is critical because most of the victims of diseases like meningitis and malaria are too poor to offer the kind of commercial market incentives that attract industry interest,” Nishi said. “But we have found many pharmaceutical and biotech companies are willing to turn their considerable talents to developing global health technologies if they have a reliable partner willing to share the risk.”
GHTC collaborated on the report with Policy Cures Research, a health-oriented think tank based in Australia. – by Gerard Gallagher
Reference:
GHTC. Return on innovation – Why global health R&D is a smart investment for the United States. 2017. http://www.ghtcoalition.org/pdf/Return-on-innovation-Why-global-health-R-D-is-a-smart-investment-for-the-United-States.pdf. Accessed July 20, 2017.
Disclosure: Nishi is the director of the GHTC.