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INSIDE
(The Beltway) SCOOP–Jon Retzlaff, Legislative
Director
When the House of Representatives failed by two
votes to override President Bush’s veto of the
FY2008 Labor-HHS-
Education Appropriations bill,
it took the wind out of our sails. The entire
research community had spent weeks alerting its
grass roots, sending letters and coordinating
meetings in an attempt to generate Congressional
support, awareness and enthusiasm for a bill
that would have provided NIH with its largest
annual increase in five years. Our Congressional
champions, including Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA)
and Arlen Specter (R-PA) as well as House
Members David Obey (D-WI) and James Walsh
(R-NY), crafted a bill that would have allowed
the agency to fund more than 400 additional
scientific proposals and would have helped
ensure that one of our nation’s most important
treasures, the National Institutes of Health,
would receive a sustainable level of funding in
FY2008.
President Bush’s rationale for vetoing the bill
(because it provided $10 billion more than he
provided in his budget last February) is being
strongly criticized by Democrats, especially
because he concurrently is asking Congress to
fund a supplemental appropriations bill of $190
billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which is an increase of $46 billion over what he
sought only a month ago. Many question how the
President can bust the budget for Iraq, yet
adamantly oppose providing less than
inflationary increases for important domestic
programs, such as funding medical research and
education.
How all this ends is anybody’s guess at this
point, but without the President showing some
willingness to compromise, it is difficult to
imagine how we avoid a year-long continuing
resolution, where agencies FY2008 budgets would
be funded at their FY2007 funding levels.
However, late last week, Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that Democrats
intended to make another run to complete the
bills by crafting a single omnibus bill and
offering to split the difference on the amount
of money in which Congress exceeded the
President’s request. Therefore, the $22 billion
that Democrats added to the President’s FY2008
budget proposal would be trimmed to $11 billion.
If Congress carries out its plan to reduce
spending by $11 billion, it would require cuts
of about 2.5 percent, if spread evenly across
the board.
It is difficult to imagine that Democrats would
agree to split the difference on the L/HHS bill
because the President’s initial budget proposal
actually recommended an overall cut of $3.7
billion from FY2007 levels. If Democrats split
the difference on the L/HHS bill, and thereby
reduced its overall increase from $10 billion to
$5 billion, it would result in a less than one
percent increase for every program funded
through the L/HHS bill. In fact, Chairman Obey
pointed out that under such a split the
difference scenario within the L/HHS bill, NIH
would be cut by $700 million (from the proposed
$1.1 billion increase). Mr. Obey also said that
it would slow research on many diseases,
including cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s and
Alzheimer’s and result in the loss of 700 grants
at NIH. Therefore, it’s likely that the L/HHS
bill would receive additional funds above the $5
billion. However, this would result in the other
appropriations bills receiving less than half of
what were initially allocated to them.
While the initial White House reaction to the
split-the-difference compromise was less than
enthusiastic, much will depend on the pressure
exerted by moderate Republicans. It’s unclear
how long Republican leaders will be able to keep
getting their members to support an unpopular
president by voting against many popular
domestic programs.
TOP OF PAGE
Stalled Senate Farm Bill Could Pose Threat to
Animal Research, Establish NIFA
Debate on the Senate version of the Farm Bill
began the week of November 5th, although it
quickly stalled due to partisan bickering over
how and which amendments could be introduced.
One of the amendments filed in advance was a
prohibition on USDA-licensed, Class B dog and
cat dealers for research, introduced by Senator
Daniel Akaka (D-HI). This prohibition could have
serious consequences for the research community,
as many ongoing studies are using these animals
for investigations on cardiovascular disease,
neurological disorders, and gastrointestinal
physiology. FASEB and other scientific
organizations have successfully defeated the
Akaka amendment on previous pieces of
legislation, but unfortunately a similar
provision was accepted on voice vote, with no
floor debate, on the House version of the Farm
Bill. This makes it especially critical to
prevent adoption of the Akaka amendment in the
Senate Farm Bill; when both houses of Congress
are in agreement on a provision, it is very
difficult to remove it during conferencing of
the bill. There is grave danger, because of the
complexity of the Farm Bill debate and the large
number of potential amendments, that the Akaka
language could be adopted through the process of
Unanimous Consent, in which no vote is taken if
no Senator actively objects to inclusion. FASEB
has been meeting with and talking to a number of
Senators in an effort to build opposition to the
Akaka amendment. In addition, the American
Physiological Society has prepared a legislative
alert, which was sent to all FASEB Member
Societies, on the Akaka amendment. To view the
alert and take action, please click
here.
The Research Title of the Senate Farm Bill would
create the National Institute of Food and
Agriculture (NIFA) within the USDA, an entity
for which FASEB has long
advocated. Unfortunately, the final version
of the bill does not include the substantial
boost in research funding that was evident in
earlier discussion drafts. Currently, the Senate
Farm Bill debate is on indefinite hold, because
the Senate was unable to come to agreement on
how to proceed with amendments. Democrats wished
to limit amendments to the Farm Bill to those
“germane” to the legislation and to have the
amendments in advance of debate on the floor,
requirements that were not acceptable to
Republican Senators. Senate Majority Leader,
Harry Reid (D-NV), tried to file a cloture
motion, which is a maneuver used to break an
impasse or a filibuster, but the cloture failed
to receive the two-thirds vote needed to pass.
It is unclear when the Senate will resume debate
on the Farm Bill, given the short time between
the Thanksgiving and December recesses and the
upcoming election year. An short term extension
has been passed through December 15th, and the
threat of a full year extension still remains.
TOP OF PAGE
POLICY UPDATE: Animal
Research, Clinical Training, OPASI,
Breakthroughs in Bioscience
FASEB Comments on USDA Animal Care Policy
Manual
In response to a request for feedback, FASEB
sent in
comments on the USDA Animal Care Policy
Manual. This is actually an online collection of
policies whose aim is to provide guidance for
the USDA Animal Care field inspectors and owners
and handlers of animal subject to the Animal
Welfare Act. FASEB joined with our colleagues at
the National Association for Biomedical Research
(NABR) in calling for clarity in the language of
the guidance, to differentiate it from required
regulations and statute and making it clear to
researchers and members of Institutional Animal
Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) that
alternatives were permissible. In particular,
FASEB and NABR suggested that the USDA consider
the model used by the Food and Drug
Administration in adding the following preface
to their guidance documents, “This guidance
represents the Agency’s current thinking on this
topic. It does not create or confer any rights
for or on any person and does not operate to
bind USDA or the public. You can use an
alternative approach if the approach satisfies
the requirements of the applicable statutes and
regulations.” The call for comments closed on
November 16th, and it remains to be seen if the
feedback will be considered. Because these are
guidance policies, rather than regulations,
there is no formal rulemaking process, giving
the USDA more leeway in their decision whether
or not to incorporate comments.
FASEB Urges NIH to Track and Evaluate the
Career Progress of Clinical Research Trainees
In a letter to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni and
Barbara Alving, Director of the National Center
for Research Resources (NCRR), FASEB urged the
NIH to take advantage of the opportunity to
track and evaluate the career progress of
clinical research trainees through the newly
formed Clinical Science and Translational Awards
(CTSA) program. FASEB recommended that CTSA
applicants describe a plan for tracking and
evaluating the progress of their training and
career development award recipients, as well as
standardizing the collection of the information.
In encouraging the agency to expand their data
collection beyond demographic and professional
characteristics, FASEB also suggested that NIH
consider examining factors that affect career
progress and establishing performance metrics,
to better understand how much time investigators
are able to contribute to research, patient
care, teaching and other duties. The full FASEB
letter may be read
here.
Implementation of the NIH Reauthorization:
OPASI Council of Councils Planning Meeting
The Council of Councils (CC) was established as
part of the NIH Reform Act passed last year and
consists of 30 members (one from each IC
Advisory Council, representatives nominated by
the OD program offices, and broad lay
representation, including a member of the NIH
Council of Public Representatives. The CC
advises the Office of Portfolio Assessment and
Strategic Analysis (OPASI) on trans-NIH research
and issues. On November 8th, the CC met for the
first time for a planning meeting (the paperwork
had not yet been completed to allow for this to
be an official, inaugural meeting). Much of the
meeting was spent discussing exactly what the
scope of their purview entailed and what they
might be interested in addressing. The range
includes: acting analogously to an IC Advisory
Council for review of trans-NIH programs such as
the Roadmap, the Common Fund, and IC-initiated
programs (Neuroscience Blueprint, Obesity,
etc.); serving as a second tier review on
high-risk (DARPA-like) research proposals or
Pioneer / Innovator awards; wrestling with
complex policy issues like the biomedical
workforce or how best to foster innovation;
OPASI-related functions (portfolio analysis to
try to identify gaps or barriers, developing
metrics to evaluate programs, etc.); or
generation of proposals / recommendations for
cross-cutting areas of science, like phenotyping
or epigenetics. The CC will act as an advisory
body to the NIH Director, the IC Directors, and
OPASI itself. By the end of the meeting,
essentially the only thing that had been settled
in that the group will meet face-to-face twice
per year and by conference calls or other media,
as necessary. FASEB will continue to follow this
group and its work as it continues.
FASEB Releases Breakthroughs in Bioscience
Article on Asthma
FASEB recently released “Breathtaking
Discoveries: How Basic Research Led to
Treatments for Asthma,” the latest article in
the Breakthroughs in Bioscience series.
This article describes how fundamental
understanding of the immune system,
inflammation, and the underlying causes of
asthma have resulted in successful treatments
for this complex disease, including improved
inhalers and leukotriene inhibitors. The
Breakthroughs in Bioscience series is a
collection of illustrated articles, published by
FASEB, that explain recent developments in basic
biomedical research and how they are important
to society.
While asthmatic attacks have been documented
since ancient times, referenced in Egyptian
papyri and Homer’s Iliad, it is only
fairly recently that scientists have come to
understand that asthma is not a single disease,
but rather a collection of syndromes leading to
common symptoms of breathlessness, wheezing, and
coughing. Researchers investigating the causes
of asthma have identified a number of
intersecting pathways, involving the nervous
system, allergic response, and even
inflammation, which have allowed for more
targeted asthma therapies and relief for
millions of asthma sufferers. From early
experiments with jellyfish toxin to the
sophisticated synthesis of chemical mediators, a
series of basic research discoveries have
illuminated the underlying biology of this
complicated condition. The article also
describes researchers quest to answer questions
like: why are incidences of asthma on the rise?;
what triggers asthma attacks?; and why does a
cold make asthma worse? Readers will come away
with an understanding of what causes asthmatic
symptoms, how asthma therapies work, and an
appreciation for the decades of scientists and
clinicians whose collective work now allows
asthma patients to breathe easier.
FASEB Breakthroughs articles are
available to all members of FASEB societies, for
use in your own teaching and advocacy efforts.
They are available in electronic or hardcopy
form and cover a range of topics. To obtain a
free copy of these publications, visit the
Breakthroughs in Bioscience Web site
http://opa.faseb.org/pages/Publications/breakthroughs.htm
or contact FASEB’s Office of Public Affairs at
(301) 634-7650.
TOP OF PAGE
JOIN FASEB IN ASKING THE
’08 CANDIDATES ABOUT THEIR SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH
FUNDING
Now more than ever, scientists know how crucial
it is that our elected leaders prioritize
funding for biomedical research. To that end,
FASEB has produced a series of YouTube videos
for consideration by CNN for the
November 28 CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential
debate. These videos ask the candidates
about their support for federal funding of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). On November
26, CNN will select a group of videos from all
the entries to be included in the debate
broadcast.
If you would like to support our effort to see
research funding addressed in this high-profile
forum, please go to
our YouTube channel on or before November
25 to view the videos (each “view” is
counted by the site). We also encourage
scientists, patient advocates, and supporters to
take a few moments over the holiday to sign up
for YouTube accounts and comment on the videos
to share your stories about federally-funded
medical research.
The YouTube videos are only the first step in a
voter education initiative soon to be launched
by FASEB. The Washington Update will continue to
bring you information as events proceed.
TOP OF PAGE
CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate are in session. The Senate
has scheduled a one-week recess beginning
October 8, 2007. The House plans to remain in
session while the Senate is on recess that week.
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