The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will lose one of its longtime champions with the upcoming retirement of Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA). Last week, Harkin announced he would not seek a sixth term, ending a 40-year congressional career. Harkin is currently chair of the Senate panel that sets funding levels for NIH, and he also chairs the committee that oversees federal policies in health, education, and labor. He teamed up with his then-Republican counterpart, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, to win a doubling of the NIH budget from 1998 to 2003. He and Specter also led an effort to include $10.4 billion for NIH in the 2009 stimulus package.
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