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Monday, October 13, 2014

Stagnant NIH Budget Partly to Blame


Stagnant NIH Budget Partly to Blame
Anemic funding for the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) set back efforts to develop infectious disease vaccinations—including for Ebola, argues NIH head Francis Collins.

The NIH budget changed little, between 2004 ($28.03 billion) and 2013 ($29.31 billion), even without adjusting for inflation, Collins says. Yet in the current crisis, the NIH has not received any new funding, but instead has had to redirect funding from efforts like a universal influenza vaccine.

The Quote: “NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,’” Collins told The Huffington Post. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready."
The Huffington Post http://jhsph.us3.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=0a43ad874dbe00d8f0545cfef&id=38affb2d40&e=9c1fcebfa3

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