One of the National Institutes of Health’s only programs devoted to global health research and training is on the chopping block as part of President Trump’s vision for an overhaul of some government agencies.
The administration’s budget blueprint, released Thursday, lays out sweeping cuts, including the elimination of the NIH’s Fogarty International Center. Public health experts say the closure of the center, if approved by Congress, could hamper future responses to the spread of infectious diseases and slow research that could help Americans.
Since the late 1960s, Fogarty has worked to bring together thousands of “the best scientific minds around the world to address critical global health research problems” including HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and other viral diseases. The center has a budget of $69.1 million — a fraction of the $6 billion in proposed NIH cuts — that today funds 400 research and training projects that involve more than 100 US universities.
How are doctors in the USA supposed to recognize early symptoms of foreign diseases brought here by travelers, unless some of them have seen these germs in their endemic habitat??
And even though most of this foreign research is in 3rd world countries, it will be needed even more as the USA slips down the development scale…
After all, our country with about a 35%-40% rate of families living in poverty is way down the world scale already!!
Fogarty is a smart, responsible, and forward-thinking investment for Americans. We turn our backs on others at our own eventual peril.
Wouldn’t it make sense for scientists to speak out against war at the same time as advocating more money for projects to help people?