(Martha Rohrer) wrote:
> the following information [was] obtained from Congressman George
> Radanovich ... :
>
> Federal money spent funding the following:
>
> Heart Disease: 737,563 deaths .. 31% of total deaths ... $851,581
>
> Cancer: 538,455 deaths .. 23.3 % of total deaths .... $21,711,809
>
> AIDS: 43,115 deaths .... 1.4 % of total deaths ... $5,598,000
>
> ... If allocations are based on death statistics, we stand a
> weaker chance ... to be considered very seriously ...
Leading causes of death are, in descending order, heart disease,
cancer, stroke, pulmonary obstruction, accidents, pneumonia and flu,
diabetes, AIDs, suicide, liver disease.
I'm not sure allocations are based on that. At the NIH Institute
level the allocations originate with the NIH budget request, which is
then adjusted annually by Congress. At a lower level who knows? Rep.
Istook thinks they are based on nothing. A cynic might think they're
based on which researchers have friends at the NIH. In any event, it
is also possible to compare costs.
Some figures I found at various places on the net, with columns 3, 5
& 6 computed by yours truly (not responsible for errors) are:
NIH Research Funding vs. Disease Costs
Approx Annual Annual NIH Rsch Rsch
Cases Economic Cost/ Research per as %
Disease (m) Cost (b) Case 1998 (m) Case of Cost
Heart 56 128 2286 1155 21 .9
Disease
Cancer 10 104 10400 2942 294 3.0
Diabetes 8-16? 98-135 9000? 373 31? .3
Alzheimer's 4 100 25000 349 87 .3
Arthritis 40 65 1625 ? ? ?
Depression 17 44 2588 ? ? ?
Stroke 3 30 10000 152 50 .5
Parkinson's 1 25 25000 41/98? 41/98? .16/.4?
Spinal Chord .25 10 40000 65 260 .65
Injury
Osteo- 28 10 357 121 4 1.0
porosis
Schizo- 3.9 65 17000 117 30 .18
phrenia
Note: research for PD is 41M "direct", the rest "related". The NIH
research numbers are from www.nih.gov/od/ofm/diseases/index.htm. Only
a few of the hundreds of different diseases are shown there. I do
not know whether the numbers in the rows on that web page are
mutually exclusive. Is part of PD money also included in Aging and
Decade of the Brain? Also, I do not know what "related" is.
Phil Tompkins
Hoboken NJ
07030
