During an unusual weekend session, on December 13 the U.S. Senate finally passed a government funding bill for the remainder of the 2015 fiscal year passed earlier by the House of Representatives. High drama ensued in the Capitol as a small group of conservatives tried to block debate on the bill by raising concerns with President Obama’s immigration policy, forcing a marathon weekend session. Ultimately, the bill passed included mostly fl at funding for most health agencies, however, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) received an increase of $150 million as a result of the increased advocacy from the research community. Th e Society thanks all members who contacted Congress; your voice was heard. A complete analysis of the legislation is available on endocrine.org. Below are highlights of importance to the Society:
National Institutes of Health (NIH) —
The bill provides $30.3 billion, an increase of $150 million in base funding and $238 million in Ebola-related research.
National Diabetes Prevention Program (NDPP) —
The bill provides support for the NDPP that encourages collaboration among federal agencies, communitybased organizations, employers, insurers, healthcare professionals, academia, and other stakeholders to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes among people in the United States.
Clinical Trials —
The agreement expects the NIH to review its policies and to make changes to ensure appropriate minority participation in clinical trials.
Commitment to New and Early-Stage Investigators —
The NIH is directed to develop a new approach with actionable steps to reduce the average age at which an investigator first obtains R01 funding. Further, the agreement requests the NIH review the grant success rates for early-stage investigators in their first two grant submissions to consider whether the grant applications submitted by all early-stage investigators should compete against other early-stage investigators instead of all submissions.
Women’s Health Research —
The agreement supports the NIH’s recent shift toward achieving balance between females and males in preclinical research and encourages the NIH to ensure this applies to experimental models used for basic science research and that both males and females are used to investigate diseases that affect men and women. It is recommended that the NIH expand its current policies to require NIH-funded investigators to prominently indicate the sex of their experimental model in their grant application and progress reports. Further, those investigators should be required to report, and when appropriate, analyze their data by sex as part of the grant progress reporting and in all published results derived from NIH funding. The NIH is encouraged to require investigators to use valid experimental design, including consideration of sex, as a biological variable in relevant research on animals, cells, and human subjects. The agreement also states that grant proposals that include adequate numbers of women and men be given priority in funding decisions, when appropriate.
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