Bob,
The NIH does give some information on its' web site about how it's money
is spent - but it sure doesn't make it easy to find, and it's not very
detailed. It's under the ofm - Office of Fiscal (or Financial?)
Management - Congressional Justification section. The URL is
http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/cj/overview.htm It includes the general
areas of research the NIH will be focusing on. If you go to "Funding by
Selected Categories" there is a breakdown of funding by INstitute and
also specific disease for 1998 -2000 (est.) I think the 2000 numbers are
based on the President's budget, so are subject to change bt Congress.
For PD funding it shows:
1999 total - 127 million 2000 total - 132 million
Direct - 78 million Direct - 81 million
Indirect - 49 million Indirect - 50 million
It doesn't explain what is meant by "direct" and "Indirect." PD is
the only disease that is broken down like this.
Even more interesting is an explanation of how the NIH FY 1999 increase
of $2,030 million was spent. (this is just the increase - not the total
budget) I think this accounting was required by Congress last year. For
this go to
http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/policies/page1.htm for a series of charts
and http://www4.od.nih.gov/ofm/policies/narrative.htm for an "Expanded
narrative for FY 1999 Budget."
I looked for anything about PD - there's not too much listed, or maybe I
missed it.
55% of the NIH increase went to fund Research Project Grants -$1,116
million
Among the "Selected Programs" listed here were "New technologies for
analyzing gene expression in the nervous system" "Gene expression
patterns in aging and neurodegeneration processes" "Expanded
neuroinformatics for the HUman Brain Project" - these were the closest
to PD research among about 50 projects listed here - wonder if this is
what they mean by "Indirect?" or were the PD grants just not among the
"Selected?" I kept hoping to find a project called "Finding a Cure for
Parkinson's."
Slide 8 listed "Selected programs - Centers" and here Parkinson's Disease
Research Centers of Excellent were listed - but no dollar amount or
number of funded centers - wasn' t it to be five?
Does anyone know more about what is being funded in 1999 for PD
research and what is going on with this year's budget appropriations
process?
Linda
