Medical Research Scores Big In Us Stimulus Bill

摘要

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) could call him Saint Specter. Cancer survivor Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania was one of three moderate Republican senators whose votes were crucial in pushing a $787-billion economic stimulus package through the US Congress. In the Senate, Specter had introduced an amendment to triple the NIH's share of the spending, calling it "scandalous" that the country doesn't spend more on medical research. His proposed $10 billion of extra spending for the NIH over two years made it through to the final version of the bill agreed by both houses of Congress on 13 February. That spending on biosciences did well compared with other science spending is not a great surprise. "Generally, the NIH gets all the big funding because people think they're going to save lives that way," says Vernon Ehlers, a physicist and member of the House of Representatives (Republican, Michigan).