In preparation for National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins’ testimony before the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee on Appropriations, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) released a public statement urging Senators to dramatically raise budget caps imposed by sequestration and reject any budget cuts to the NIH.
In addition to Collins’ testimony, he will be joined by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci.
The IDSA’s statement stems from the recently-released proposed FY2018 budget by the Trump Administration, which calls for a 23 percent cut tot NIAID and to completely eliminate the NIH’s Fogarty International Center.
The cuts, IDSA said, would severely constrain the development of urgently needed new vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics to address infectious disease threats that include Zika virus, influenza, HIV/AIDS, and antimicrobial resistance. Additionally, the organization said the closing of the Fogarty Center would come at a cost to the country’s global health leadership and its domestic health security.
“IDSA recommends at least $4.961 billion in overall funding in FY2018 to grow, not shrink NIAID’s resources and capacity to develop the tools needed to prevent, treat, control and cure infectious diseases, and to protect public health,” the organization said in its statement.
The statement comes in addition to a May letter, written by IDSA and the HIV Medicine Association, which called for full support of the Fogarty Center and urged Congress to retain its funding in FY2018 of at least $72 million.
“IDSA is grateful for longstanding bipartisan support in Congress for federal investments in NIH research that protect our nation from infectious diseases threats, and that has most recently been demonstrated by the 2017 omnibus funding bill,” the organization said. “We strongly urge Congress to maintain this momentum and reject harmful funding cuts that would reverse progress and put Americans at risk.”