We Urge U.S. Lawmakers to Restore NIH Funding and Diabetes Prevention Program
Let’s not sugar coat the situation: Biomedical research funding in the United States has taken a significant hit in recent months.
Deep budget cuts and staff layoffs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) threaten not only the livelihoods of our many research members, but also the very progress we’re making to understand and treat diseases that affect millions of people around the world. In my own institution, U.K. collaborators are impacted by these funding cuts; the same will hold true across the globe.
One alarming example is the administration’s abrupt cancellation of NIH funding for the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) and the DPP Outcomes Study. The loss of this ongoing research program, which is being conducted at 30 institutions in 21 states, will affect thousands of researchers and tens of millions of people in the U.S. who have type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.
Since its inception in 1996, the DDP has provided important long-term data on factors that prevent diabetes. Among its findings, DPP found that a 5% – 7% weight loss lowered the risk of developing diabetes by 58%.
A follow-up to the original program, the DPP Outcomes Study has continued to monitor many of the more than 3,100 surviving participants since 2002. Factors under examination include long-term effects of diabetes prevention on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, cancer, heart disease and stroke, nerve damage, kidney disease, and eye disease.
Staff Cuts to Health Agencies
In addition to DDP, the Society is concerned about the administration’s recent move to slash tens of thousands of jobs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and other health agencies.
Recent layoffs include 3,500 full-time employees at the FDA, 2,400 at the CDC, 1,200 at the NIH, and 300 at CMS, according to an HHS fact sheet.
The NIH layoffs and other cuts, in particular, will harm the agency’s ability to review grant applications, fund research and run needed programs. Since January, there have been multiple actions to cut federal funding of research, including an attempt to freeze all grants and an announcement that would limit indirect costs for NIH grants to 15%.
Adding to our concerns, the administration is implementing additional layers of administrative review for grants and funding opportunities, which we fear will politicize the process of awarding scientific grants.
Endocrine Society Advocacy
So, what is the Endocrine Society doing about all this?
We have expressed our opposition to budget cuts and layoffs directly to the administration and members of Congress. We have called for an immediate restoration of funding to DDP and other crucial health programs.
We took this message directly to important senators and representatives during our March Hill Day. We visited over 30 key congressional offices and shared the importance of research funding and for the Special Diabetes Program. Seventeen members told the lawmakers’ health aides about the consequences of these actions.
One member who attended the Hill Day noted that her organization had received NIH funding for work to help pediatric cancer patients live happy and healthy lives and eventually have children of their own. “I also use this NIH funding to help train the next generation of physician-scientists, and I worry that without this funding, our nation will not be able to continue to be a leader in biomedical research,” she said.
Another member at Hill Day said the funding cuts came as a shock at her university, because research fellows can no longer rely on steady, sustainable support for workforce and training grants. “The devastation that we’ve seen with cuts in training grants are really sending a message that we don’t want the next generation to go into science,” she said.
Following our Hill Day meetings, several of the offices we visited contacted the administration and shared our concerns. Two days later, the NIH announced it would begin to resume Advisory Council meetings and study sections. We have also issued statements to the media about the impact of these cuts, which received attention. We submitted testimony to the congressional appropriations committees and provided representatives and senators with updates on the status of funding decisions and issues at the NIH so that they could continue to press for restoration of funding. Members of Congress have expressed appreciation for the information that our members have shared about the direct impacts of cuts.
The NIH has a longstanding reputation as a bipartisan priority due to the consistent advocacy of our members and those of other science-focused societies, and together we have been successful in the past at delivering increases to the NIH budget and protecting the agency from harmful actions, such as ensuring that graduate school tuition waivers were not treated as taxable income in the 2017 tax reform bill.
Join Our Advocacy Campaign
You can help in this effort! We’re asking Society members in the U.S. to urge their federal lawmakers to take immediate actions to reverse these cuts. It only takes a few minutes to send a message to members of Congress. Visit endocrine.org/advocacy/take-action or access the campaigns at:
- Online campaign to restore Diabetes Prevention Program.
- Online campaign on how NIH funding cuts hurt research.
Join your peers in participating. Already, members have sent more than 1,100 messages to Congress.
Biomedical research funding in the United States is facing an extremely challenging time. As one of the most respected medical societies in the world, the Endocrine Society is doing all it can to ensure our scientists continue the research that millions of people around the world depend on.
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