Defunding the NIH

A article in the Pacific Standard magazine by Michael White provides an update on my prior post on The NIH Un-Doubling. The primary point in that post was a graph published in 2007 in

Heinig SJ, Krakower JY, Dickler HB, Korn D. Sustaining the engine of U.S. biomedical discovery. N Engl J Med. 2007 Sep 6;357(10):1042-7. [Publisher Link]

which presented the NIH budget allocations in dollar amounts adjusted for inflation* (expressed in 1998 dollars). The “undoubling” part reflected the 2007 allocation and 2008 Bush administration request in comparison with a trendline established from the early 1970s until the beginning of the doubling. It’s worth revisiting the graph from that article

Figure 1. NIH Appropriations (Adjusted for Inflation in Biomedical Research) from 1965 through 2007, the President’s Request for 2008, and Projected Historical Trends through 2010.
All values have been adjusted according to the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index on the basis of a standard set of relevant goods and services (with 1998 as the base year). The trend line indicates average real annual growth between fiscal years 1971 and 1998 (3.34%), with projected growth (dashed line) at the same rate. The red square indicates the president’s proposed NIH budget for fiscal year 2008, also adjusted for inflation in biomedical research.

because the updated one, below, only starts in 1990.

This new article How We’re Unintentionally Defunding the NIH provides the update, now represented in 2011 dollars. I’m not immediately seeing whether Michael White made this graph himself or sourced it from somewhere else but he does cite a Congressional Research Services report by John F. Sargent Jr which is worth a read.

This is fascinating. We’ve discussed historical funding trends and success rates under NIH extramural grant awards in the past. One post I wrote is highly pertinent:

The red trace depicts success rates from 1962 to 2008 for R01 equivalents (R01, R23, R29, R37). Note that they are not broken down by experienced/new investigators status, nor are new applications distinguished from competing continuation applications*. The blue line shows total number of applications reviewed…which may or may not be of interest to you. [update 7/12/12: I forgot to mention that the data in the 60s are listed as “estimated” success rates.]

The bottom line here is that looking at the actual numbers can be handy when playing the latest round of “We had it tougher than you did” at the w(h)ine and cheese hour after departmental seminar…Things are worse than they’ve ever been and these dismal patterns have bee sustained for much longer. … Anyone who tries to tell you they had it as hard or harder at any time in the past versus now is high as a kite. Period.

One key takeaway from this new graph is a consideration for those who insist that the NIH doubling interval was a poisoned gift. There are those that claim that our current woes are because research Universities and Medical Schools built up tremendous amounts of new infrastructure and personnel during the doubling, with the expectation that that rate of NIH budget escalation would continue. The thinking is that we experienced a bubble and the only reason we have problems now (during this extended interval of budget flatlining and therefore slipping purchasing power**) with dismal success rates. Too many mouths at the trough, is the way I put the situation, even if I don’t specifically blame the doubling interval for this.

This new graph makes it very clear that we have not just returned to the 3.3% growth trendline for the NIH budget. We have fallen off that line. Furthermore, the stimulus funding and the modest increases the Obama Administration have bruited as an initial budget offering are insufficient to change this divergence. It is absolutely clear that the NIH purchasing power is shrinking. Shrinking below the trends established from 1971 to 1998.

This is not a contraction relative to the doubling interval anymore! We’re way beyond that. We look to be as far below the historical trendline as we were above the line at the peak (end) of the doubling interval. We’re something on the order of $8-$10 Billion in the hole, something around 75% of where the historical trendline would have taken us. That seems like a lot of money until you realize

Today's live #Dailychart looks at how America's military spending stacks up http://t.co/5udBkZXB9z pic.twitter.com/sfYaHNaBv5

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 27, 2013

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*from here:

source

**using BRDPI (Biomedical Research and Development Price Index)