On Thursday, May 23rd, 2024, the United States Senate’s Committee on Appropriations held a hearing to review the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This hearing was set before the subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, where senators were able to review the past, current, and future work conducted by NIH.
NIH Director, Monica Bertagnolli, M.D., was accompanied by colleagues Kimryn Rathmell, M.D, Ph.D., M.M.H.C (National Cancer Institute Director), Jeanne Marazzo, M.D, M.P.H (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director), Gary H. Gibbons, M.D. (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Director), Richard J. Hodes, M.D. (National Institute on Aging Director), and Nora Volkow, M.D. (National Institute on Drug Abuse Director).
In her testimony, Bertagnolli referenced the 2025 budget request for $50.1 billion to be allocated to NIH, for its “discretionary and mandatory resources.” She cited that this funding would allow NIH to meet the goals set by the current administration: “to prevent more than four million cancer deaths by 2047, end the HIV epidemic, and make targeted investments in mental health, women’s health research and data science in an environment of tight discretionary spending caps.” She then further addressed the means by which NIH would meet these goals.
Beginning with NIH’s intention to halve the US cancer death rate by 2047, Bertagnolli highlighted the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot Initiative, and a proposal for the reauthorization of the 21st Century Cures Act Cancer Moonshot program. The 21st Century Cures Act was signed into law by Former President Barack Obama back in 2016, and was designed to accelerate research and production of new drugs and treatments. With the reauthorization of this act, the Cancer Moonshot Program would continue to receive its benefits, in the name of research and treatments for cancer, through the 2025 fiscal year.
Moving on to mental health, Bertagnolli spoke on the uses of precision medicine in this relatively new field, which would be advanced through a new initiative that seeks to better integrate behavioral data with clinical data for more precise and effective treatments. This initiative is been named IMPACT-MH (Individually Measured Phenotypes to Advance Computational Translation in Mental Health), and its purpose is linked to NIH’s objective to build and distribute “a robust evidence base for effective preventive and treatment interventions for mental and behavioral disorders.”
With regards to Women’s Health Research, the NIH Director spoke on an evident need to create prevention and treatment methods that are tailored to every woman’s own specific needs, throughout each stage of their lifespan. Bertagnolli introduced this subject matter as a need to better integrate sex and gender influences into biomedical research, which speaks to the stark reality that most research has not taken these factors into account and is based mostly on the genetic make-ups of men. She referenced this focus as being in tandem with President Biden’s recently announced White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, which also emphasizes the overwhelming lack of research focused on women.
Long COVID was also an issue of interest within NIH’s 2025 budget request. NIH plans to expand upon its Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) initiative, which focuses research onto Long COVID across several of its specialized institutes. The initiative was launched in 2023 with the goal of evaluating at least four potential treatments, and now aims to continue building upon that research with continued open enrollment trials.
On an infrastructural note, Bertagnolli also emphasized a need to improve data sharing across laboratories, large health care systems, and individual communities, with plans to use National Library of Medicine “as a focal point to support data sharing and use for biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences research across the Nation.” NIH is hoping to create a more accountable network of researchers and medical practitioners, such that research from all facets of medical fields are able to make their way to the public quickly and efficiently.
In line with NIH’s attention to Long COVID, they also mean to address the current climate set by the COVID-19 pandemic with a portion of their budget request going towards biodefense: the research, creation, and implementation surrounding vaccines and antibodies to prevent illness. NIH plans to continue conducting and supporting trials and generating data to improve this invaluable area of medicine. Aside from where prevention is concerned, NIH also plans for its research to support the development of next-generation diagnostics, to ensure that there are effective and affordable at-home testing kits as potential viruses and other matters of illness arise.
Bertagnolli’s final point of her testimony centered around the infrastructure of research, and specifically the NIH intramural research program. This area includes funding towards improved facilities with more effective and reliable equipment, and is part of an ongoing mission by NIH to address “the Backlog of Maintenance and Repairs” in said facilities and equipment, which are currently estimated to be $3.8 billion in necessary repairs.
The National Institute of Health, and the specialized institutes that it is composed of, explored a vast array of intentions for their work over the next year, as well as over the decades to come. Their intentions and research alike touched on the medical issues that connect to every community within the US population, both directly and indirectly. Bertagnolli and her colleagues likewise displayed a keen familiarity and political awareness for the struggles within the infrastructure of the US healthcare system, which the subcommittee returned in kind via targeted questioning that highlighted the woes and interests of the states they represent.
The recording of this hearing is still available via the Appropriations Committee website, here. Director Bertagnolli’s testimony can also be found on the subcommittee’s website, here.
Recent Comments