NIH gets $2 billion boost in Senate spending bill - new funding for 2017

[Bob]

NIH gets $2 billion boost in Senate spending bill
Science Mag
June 7th 2016
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/nih-gets-2-billion-boost-senate-spending-bill

A Senate spending panel today approved a $2 billion boost in 2017 for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or a 6.2% increase to $34.1 billion. It's the second year in a row that the Senate has slated the agency for a large increase after 12 years of flat budgets.

Read more:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/nih-gets-2-billion-boost-senate-spending-bill

 

[Bob]

Some details...

According to a committee press release, the bill also includes $1.39 billion for Alzheimer’s disease research, a 40% increase. It allocates a $100 million increase for Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which would total $300 million. The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies brain-mapping project would get $100 million more for a total of $250 million. And the bill includes $50 million in new spending for a federal initiative to combat antimicrobial resistance.

One initiative that is not mentioned is a proposal to give NIH $680 million in 2017 to carry out parts of Vice President Joe Biden’s proposed moonshot to double progress against cancer. Subcommittee member Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN), who also chairs another committee that has craftedseveral bills to speed medical innovation, suggested during today’s hearing that the moonshot could still receive mandatory funding as part of the innovation bills.

But the prospects of those bills being approved by Congress this year are uncertain. If they don’t pass, it’s possible that moonshot funding will be added to the appropriations bill later in the legislative process, Zeitzer says.

The full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up the measure on Thursday, after which more details of the bill should become publicly available. Cole’s House subcommittee hasn’t yet announced when it will introduce its version of the bill.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/nih-gets-2-billion-boost-senate-spending-bill

 

[Bob]

National Institutes of Health (NIH) – $34 billion, an increase of $2 billion above FY2016. The bill includes:
• $300 million for the Precision Medicine Initiative, an increase of $100 million;
• $1.39 billion for Alzheimer’s disease research, an increase of $400 million;
• $250 million, an increase of $100 million, for the BRAIN Initiative to map the human brain;
• $333.4 million, an increase of $12.5 million, for the Institutional Development Award;
• $463 million, an increase of $50 million, to Combat Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria;
• $12.6 million for the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act;
• Increases to every Institute and Center to continue investments in innovative research that will advance fundamental knowledge and speed the development of new therapies, diagnostics, and preventive measures to improve the health of all Americans.

http://www.appropriations.senate.go...7-labor-hhs-and-education-appropriations-bill

 

[duncan]

Less than $30 million combined for ME/CFS and Lyme, despite literally millions struggling with, or being disabled by, those diseases.

How many pwME in the US? Oh, sorry, the US has no recognized pwME. How many CFSers? Over a million?

Meanwhile, in the US alone, perhaps more than 60,000 new cases of late stage Lyme resistant to treatment - each and every year - are added to the chronically ill. So if Lyme has been spreading at an inclined rate in the US since the late 70's...I need my calculator.

Obviously between the two diseases we are talking millions felled.

Less than $30 million allocated.

 

[ebethc]

In related news....

Sean Parker's Foundation just donated $250m for immunotherapy research & development to combat cancer. Sean Parker has serious immune & allergy problems in his family and has also funded allergy projects at UCSF.
There HAS to be some traction in combating immune illnesses as well, right? I don't know why my body can't keep EBV at bay, or if it's related to the T lymphocytes mentioned in this brief summary, or if this research will lead to more understanding about NK cells (..and why I have so very few of them..) but it here's hoping.
http://parker.org/initiatives/parker-ici

...and the Gates Foundation donated the lion's share of a $400m investment in microbiome research, which may be beneficial, too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...w-white-house-initiative-will-figure-out-how/

Maybe the best strategy is to try to get added to big projects that are already super well funded & seem to be focused in very close approximation of CFS... I don't know enough about the politics of funding & research... Is it possible to write an open letter w a petition on Change.org, etc., to the Parker Foundation & Gates Foundations to make a small change to the scope?