Alert

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, chaired a hearing today, on The “National Institutes of Health: Investing in a Healthier Future.” The hearing was an oversight hearing focused on the progress the NIH is making in developing treatments and cures as well as to hear directly from Institute Directors on their biomedical research portfolios.

“This year, this Subcommittee and the full Committee have placed a high priority on biomedical research,” said Blunt. “We have a Senate bill that includes $2 billion dollars of additional funds for that research, an increase of 7% over current year’s spending. Over the past decade, with not much new money going into NIH, the purchasing power at NIH has decreased by about 20%. We hope to see that reversed if we’re successful with what we’re trying to do to provide the increase that we’re looking at here.”

Blunt currently serves as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee of Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. The committee-passed FY2016 Labor/HHS Appropriations bill included a $2 billion increase in NIH funding, the largest increase the NIH has received in an appropriations bill since 2003.

Blunt authored an op-ed on the need for increased NIH funding to advance research to find cures and additional treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s and ALS, and to develop new antibiotics to overcome increased resistance. Senator Blunt’s opening remarks can be found below as well as here.

The witnesses at the hearing included: Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., Director, National Institutes of Health; Douglas Lowy, M.D., Acting Director, National Cancer Institute; Griffin P. Rodgers, M.D., M.A.C.P., Director, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D., Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Jon R. Lorsch, Ph.D., Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences; Nora D. Volkow, M.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse.