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From: kaisernetwork.org Daily Report Harkin Calls on Senate Panel To Reject NIH Budget Reduction Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, Education and Related Agencies Chair Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) on Monday at a hearing said that the subcommittee should reject a proposal from President Bush to reduce the NIH budget in fiscal year 2008, CongressDaily reports (Edney, CongressDaily, 5/22). Bush has proposed to reduce the NIH budget to $28.6 billion in FY 2008 from $28.9 billion in FY 2007 (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 4/23). Harkin and subcommittee ranking member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have said that they will seek to prevent the proposed reduction in the NIH budget. At the hearing, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said that additional funds for NIH could help with efforts to develop a vaccine to protect against a flu pandemic. Patricia Grady, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research, said that additional funds for NIH could allow the institute to train more faculty members for nursing schools, which last year had to reject 42,000 potential students because of a faculty shortage. According to John Niederhuber, director of the National Cancer Institute, the institute would have to reduce clinical trials by 5% in FY 2008 in the event that the budget remains the same. Harkin said, "In all these areas, NIH continues to do really good work even though they got tight budgets, but I think what I take from this is the fact that if we were to give them the increases that we should be giving them, that we're really on the cusp of some really important breakthroughs" (Edney, CongressDaily, 5/22). kaisernetwork.org -- a free service of the Kaiser Family Foundation -- provides in-depth coverage of health policy news, debates and discussions to policymakers, the media and general public. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn