Federal Support For Research Research Articles

Fueling education reform: historically black colleges are meeting a national science imperative.

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are playing a critical role today in helping America overcome a looming shortage of scientists and engineers who are vital to the nation's future economic growth and competitiveness. Despite meager funding and a lack of public recognition, these educational institutions are producing a large share of the nation's African American graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

ASSESSING THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF RESEARCH

For almost half a century World War II and the Cold War provided the political and fiscal context for public investment in science and technology. The report prepared by Vannevar Bush, Science: the Endless Frontier (1945), advanced an investment rationale for federal support of scientific research. In spite of pressure from Congress and the Office of the President the scientific community has resisted the development and application of operational economic criteria for the allocation of research resources.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Chiropractic: a profession at the crossroads of mainstream and alternative medicine.

Chiropractic is a large and well-established health care profession in the United States. In this overview, we briefly examine the development of chiropractic from humble and contentious beginnings to its current state at the crossroads of alternative and mainstream medicine. Chiropractic has taken on many of the attributes of an established profession, improving its educational and licensing systems and substantially increasing its market share in the past two decades. The public increasingly uses chiropractic largely for spinal pain syndromes and appears to be highly satisfied with the results. Of all the so-called alternative professions, chiropractic has made the largest inroads into private and public health care financing systems and is increasingly viewed as an effective specialty by many in the medical profession. Much of the positive evolution of chiropractic can be ascribed to a quarter century-long research effort focused on the core chiropractic procedure of spinal manipulation. This effort has helped bring spinal manipulation out of the investigational category to become one of the most studied forms of conservative treatment for spinal pain. Chiropractic theory is still controversial, but recent expansion in federal support of chiropractic research bodes well for further scientific development. The medical establishment has not yet fully accepted chiropractic as a mainstream form of care. The next decade should determine whether chiropractic maintains the trappings of an alternative health care profession or becomes fully integrated into all health care systems.

Bill Extends Benefits to Companies That Test Drugs in Children

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessBill Extends Benefits to Companies That Test Drugs in ChildrenChristine LehmannChristine LehmannSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:18 Jan 2002https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.37.2.0004aA bill renewing a 1997 federal law giving pharmaceutical companies a financial incentive to test drugs in children was passed by Congress last month. The president is expected to sign the bill (S 178) this month.The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act extends the pediatric testing provisions in the 1997 FDA Modernization Act for another five years and adds new provisions to strengthen the program.The legislation requires pharmaceutical companies submitting new drug applications with the FDA to show that they conducted studies on children. The law also extends drug patents for six months if the drug is considered to be important to study in children, and the drug companies agree to conduct the studies.The law was prompted by the fact that fewer than 20 percent of medications on the market in 1996 were studied or approved for use in children. Yet many medications were being prescribed without important information about safety, efficacy, and side effects in children.Concerned about the lack of pediatric prescribing information led physician groups including APA, the AMA, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to advocate for the pediatric testing provisions in the 1997 law and its renewal last year.Since 1997, drug companies have undertaken more than 400 pediatric studies on a wide range of drugs, of which 58 have been completed, according to the bill’s sponsors. In addition, the FDA has granted patent extensions to 53 drug companies for undertaking studies of their products in children.Pediatric patent extensions have been granted for three psychotropic drugs—fluoxetine (Prozac), buspirone (Buspar), and fluvoxamine (Luvox). Only fluvoxamine, however, was approved by the FDA for a label change for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder in youth (Psychiatric News, July 6, 2001).The results of a study of fluvoxamine by Solvay Pharmaceuticals showed that a dose increase may be necessary in adolescents and that girls from 8 to 11 years of age may require lower doses. By contrast, the results of a study of buspirone by Bristol-Myers Squibb did not support that the drug was safe or effective in treating general anxiety disorder in youth from 6 to 17 years of age at doses recommended for adults, according to the FDA.Eli Lilly, the maker of fluoxetine, was granted a six-month extension to study its drug in children, but the results were not informative enough to warrant a label change, according to the FDA.Because the FDA cannot mandate that drug companies with existing patents study their products in children, the 1997 law was amended in the 2001 bill to allow the National Institutes of Health Foundation to serve as a funding mechanism for studies of drugs in children that might not be done otherwise because their manufacturers declined to study them or because they have expired patents, according to the legislation.In addition, drug companies will have to respond to the FDA’s written requests to conduct studies and make label changes within specific timeframes set out in the legislation. The FDA has a priority list of approximately 25 psychotropic drugs for which it has issued about 12 written requests for studies.For example, a drug company has 30 days to make a FDA-requested labeling change. Otherwise, the FDA can label a drug misbranded if it attempts to market it for an unapproved use, according to the legislation.The bill also requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to establish an Office of Pediatric Therapeutics to coordinate all FDA pediatric activities and to contract with the Institute of Medicine to review federal regulations, reports, and support for research involving children, paying particular attention to issues of informed consent, payment, and benefit/risk assessments in research.The text and a summary of the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act is available at the Thomas legislative Web site at thomas.loc.gov by searching on the bill number, “S 1789.” ▪ ISSUES NewArchived

How industry matters in balancing the federal research portfolio

The evolution of the federal research portfolio over recent years has produced concern about its current balance of funding between different scientific fields. Substantial changes have also occurred in recent years in the magnitude of corporate support for US research, which now exceeds the funding provided by the Federal government. This change is described. Its implications for the “balance” of the federal research portfolio are considered with regards to funding levels, the time-evolution of these levels, and factors such as the production of trained scientists, and the needs of industry as a consumer of scientific knowledge. There are substantial difficulties associated with comparing federal and corporate support for research due to current definitions and data collection methodologies. Understanding these uncertainties is critical to understanding how federal and corporate support for research can complement each other.

Science, Cold War, and the American State: Lloyd V. Berkner and the Balance of Professional Ideals

Radio, aviation and the origins of a technocratic vision Mr. Berkner to Washington radio science and World War II science and post-war defence - extending the partnership, 1945-49 extending the partnership - applying technocratic ideas outside of the military scientists, Project Troy, and the direction of Cold War strategic planning career choices and the Korean War panic of 1950 continental defense, secrecy, and the scientists's role in national security planning stretching the coalistion - scientists and the distant early warning line expanding federal support of private research - the case of radio astronomy Berkner and the IGY IGY satellites and the launch of Sputnik horizons and limits.

The Academy of Radiology Research and the Growth of NIH Support for Imaging Research, 1995–2001

In previous articles we have focused almost solely on the campaign to establish the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the current efforts to organize the new institute. At the time this is being written in early October, however, two of the most important processes related to organizing NIBIB—the search for a permanent director and the appropriation of funds for fiscal year 2002—are both incomplete. A search committee has been appointed to identify candidates for director, and the NIH is currently advertising for and accepting applications. In the legislative arena, the appropriation for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (including the NIH), and Education has been slowed by uncertainties regarding the cost of the education bill passed by the Congress earlier this year. The Congress is expected to pass an appropriation for the NIH later in the fall. Despite these incomplete processes, there is some news concerning NIBIB to report. Acting NIBIB Director Donna J. Dean, PhD, and the current staff of the new institute have moved into permanent offices in Building 31 on the NIH campus. In addition, the NIBIB Web site is now operational. Information about NIBIB can be accessed at http://www.nibib.nih.gov. We will report further on the organization of NIBIB in future articles. While the effort to create the NIBIB has been the primary focus of the Academy of Radiology Research since its inception in 1995, the Academy has also worked more broadly to increase federal support for imaging research from the pre-NIBIB institutes at the NIH and to improve the capability of the discipline of radiology to take full advantage of such support. Just as the campaign to establish NIBIB has succeeded, the Academy has also achieved its broader goal. The stature and profile of medical imaging research in the federal government, particularly at the NIH, are appreciably higher in 2001 than in 1995.

The Point of a Ban: Or, How to Think about Stem Cell Research

Or, How to Think about Stem Cell Research We might be convinced that goal of relieving suffering offers a straightforward justification of sacrificing embryos in research. Or we might hold that although embryos merit our greater good to be achieved by destroying them, more respect must give way to research. Or, if we take notion of respect seriously, we might find that relieving suffering is a real but not supreme imperative. its report Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research, National Bioethics Advisory Commission says following of congressional ban on federally funded embryo research: In our view, ban conflicts with several of ethical goals of medicine, especially healing, prevention, and research.[1] So inured have we become to such language that we fail to notice its oddity. Is it surprising that a ban should conflict with desirable goals? Or isn't that, in fact, why we sometimes need a ban--precisely to prohibit an unacceptable means to otherwise desirable ends? Taking note of this point--the oddity of NBAC's statement--should help us think about issue of stem cell research. To explore logic and make sense of a ban on stem cell research is my aim here. To be sure, such a ban may be persuasive chiefly for those who are concerned to affirm dignity of embryo, but public debate need not be restricted to a seemingly endless argument about embryo's status. Since many parties to debate claim, at least, to agree that embryo should be treated with respect, it may be fruitful to explore other issues--in particular, nature of moral reasoning and background beliefs that underlie such reasoning. I propose to take a very long way round. Our understanding of what is at stake can be sharpened if we begin not with stem cell research but with a quite different moral question. memoir of his service as a Marine in Pacific theater of World War II, historian William Manchester writes at one point: Biak was a key battle, because Kuzumi had made most murderous discovery of war. Until then Japs had defended each island at beach. When beach was lost, island was lost; surviving Nips formed for a banzai charge, dying for emperor at muzzles of our guns while few, if any, Americans were lost. After Biak enemy withdrew to deep caverns. Rooting them out became a bloody business which reached its ultimate horrors in last months of war. You think of lives which would have been lost in an invasion of Japan's home islands--a staggering number of American lives but millions more of Japanese--and you thank God for atomic bomb.[2] Yet, one might argue--many have--that it would always be wrong to drop atomic bombs on cities, that doing so violates rights of noncombatants. One might argue for a ban on that approach to waging war, even though in instance cited by Manchester one can reasonably claim that such a ban would have conflicted with some of ethical goals of statecraft: to minimize loss of life, and to seek peace and pursue it. Utilitarianism of Extremity How do we reason about such a ban in ethics of warfare? There are, of course, different views about what is permitted in war, as there are different views on all important moral questions. But if we contemplate briefly logic of one very widely read treatment--Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars[3]--we will discover that it provides a helpful window into our consideration of banning federal support for stem cell research. Following a well-trodden path, Walzer notes that there is a kind of dualism in just war theory. It requires two different sorts of moral judgments: about when it is permissible to go to war (what Walzer calls the theory of aggression) and about what it is permissible to do in war (which he terms the war convention). …

Clear goals, solid evidence, integrated systems, realistic roles.

To maximize the effectiveness of home care in improving or maintaining the health of Canadians, home-care programs must have clear goals, be founded firmly on evidence of effectiveness, form part of an integrated healthcare system and be grounded in constitutional and political reality. Goals should be client-centred and distinguish between curative, supportive and preventive care. Curative and supportive home care can be cost-effective if substitution for more costly institutional services can be achieved, but the cost-effectiveness of preventive home care and comprehensive care for the elderly has not been clearly demonstrated. Integrated delivery systems are a prerequisite for effective substitution of care at home for institutional care. Federal financing dedicated to a home-care program is unnecessary and is a political and constitutional non-starter. Federal leadership for a national home-care approach would be welcome. Canada Health Act protection for access to medically necessary home care is attractive, but such protection for pharmaceuticals is a higher need. Federal support for research and demonstration of new models of care is valuable.

Violence: No Silver Bullet

From the neighborhood bully berating a meek classmate to the rhesus macaque screaming at a rival, displays of aggression are the weapon of choice throughout the animal kingdom for asserting dominance, challenging a higher ranking individual, or laying claim to food, water, and other resources. Most of the time, these conflicts are resolved peacefully. But on occasion harsh words and snarls escalate into left jabs and maulings. Why do individuals become violent, and how can we prevent them from injuring others or themselves? These are the central questions explored in this Special Issue on Violence. First, a disclaimer. This issue does not attempt to penetrate all the ugly visages of violence, purposefully ignoring, for instance, violence inflicted by predators upon their prey, human cruelty to animals, and that uniquely human capacity for waging war. Rather, the following collection of News stories and research Reviews focuses on violence directed by individuals against members of their own kind. Studying violence can be risky in its own right, at least to one's reputation. Many years ago the field was rife with theories such as phrenology, which held that personality traits, including violent tendencies, could be divined from the shape of the skull. But even while modern-day violence researchers have succeeded in distancing themselves from the discredited ideas of their predecessors, an ill-formulated comparison of inner city violence and the “jungle”—which some saw as equating black youths with monkeys—in the early 1990s helped ignite a fire storm of protest over studies on the biological roots of violence. Although hampered by the controversy, a small band of researchers is pursuing provocative theories that implicate dysfunction of serotonin-containing brain circuits in violent behavior (see News story by Enserink on p. [575][1] and the Review by Davidson et al. on p. [591][2]); suggest that violence is pathological, in that it is “normal” aggression gone awry (see News story by Pennisi on p. [576][3] and the Review by de Waal on p. [586][4]); and indicate that violent tendencies can begin to develop in early infancy (see News story by Holden on p. [580][5]). Social scientists, on the other hand, have benefited from increased federal support for research aimed in part at pinpointing which antiviolence interventions work in which settings, one positive development in the aftermath of the tragedy at Columbine High School last year (see News story by Marshall on p. [570][6]). Were Columbine and other recent school shootings symptoms of a diseased society? In fact, since the early 1990s, violent crime rates have declined in the United States, although rates remain substantially higher than in Europe (see News story by Hagmann on p. [572][7]). Teasing out the factors that drive the ebb and flow of U.S. violent crime rates may help predict future trends and point to productive interventions (see Editorial by Blumstein on p. [545][8] and News story by Helmuth on p. [582][9]), while profiling the personalities of victims—such as the type of police officer more likely to die in the line of duty—could help protect vulnerable subpopulations (see News story by Stokstad on p. [584][10]). There is no silver bullet capable of neutralizing the biological or psychological triggers that set an individual on a path toward violence. Indeed, it's still unclear how much animal studies can reveal about our own capacity for violence. But ultimately, researchers are bound to converge on a common goal: Deeper knowledge of the biology of violence will help social scientists match violence-prone individuals with intervention programs that can steer them onto a path toward conciliation and respect for the sanctity of life. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.575 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.591 [3]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.576 [4]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.586 [5]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.580 [6]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.570 [7]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.572 [8]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.545 [9]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.582 [10]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.289.5479.584

Reassessing Science's Social Contract

Politics is messy. So it's no surprise that the history and shape of federal support for research are messy, a farrago of agencies, purposes, programs, and origins that to outsiders must border on the bizarre. But just as some architects argue that rather than sneer at the strange architecture of Las Vegas we should try to understand it, so, too, should we try to understand the federal research system. Extracting that sense is the province of science policy. Yet a student of the federal research sausage faces an ineluctable risk that the analysis may overpower the seamy reality. Intellectual prisms focused on the federal system of research support can return images that are so distorted as to be false nevertheless believable because they fit prescriptive ideas. In short, science policy often suffers from a yes, but problem. David H. Guston's Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research continues that tradition. ...

Democracy requires involvement

Three hundred scientists and engineers from around the United States converged on Washington, D.C., on April 5 to personally urge Congress to increase federal support for scientific research. The 5th annual Science, Engineering, and Technology Congressional Visits Day drew 33 Earth and space scientists, including a contingent of AGU members, to Capitol Hill for a series of face‐to‐face meetings with senators, representatives, and legislative staff. These visitors advocated two common themes to the lawmakers: 1) supporting a balanced federal investment in science, engineering, and technology is fundamental to the nation s continued prosperity, and 2) science, engineering, and technology partnerships between government, universities, and industries means progress, economic growth, and jobs.

Social Contracts and the Impact of Matching Fund Requirements on American Research Universities

Matching fund and cost-sharing requirements are increasingly pervasive elements in federal support of academic research. Federal agencies perceive universities as receiving benefits in the form of increased reputation and intellectual property rights from the performance of federally funded research. Distributed benefits are seen as justifying distributed costs. This trend challenges the public goods rationale for federal support of academic research. Reinforcing this trend are the increases in the number of research-intensive universities that induce agencies to seek what are, in effect, price discounts and induce universities to voluntarily offer them. The responses of universities to this new bargaining environment and public policy issues are examined.

AAAS forum supports stem cell research

Research on the use of embryonic stem cells to treat human diseases should proceed with federal support, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In a just-released draft report, prepared in conjunction with the Institute for Civil Society, Newton, Mass., AAAS states that stem cells—the undifferentiated cells found in embryos, and, in very limited quantities, in adults—have shown enormous potential to relieve human suffering and treat diseases ranging from various forms of cancer to Alzheimer's disease. But, it goes on to say, the research needed to make such treatments practical is being stifled due to ethical and religious objections. Because of such objections, Congress has banned federal support for research that uses cells obtained from aborted fetuses or from embryos fertilized at in vitro fertilization clinics. AAAS argues that the derivation of the cells—that is, collection of embryonic tissue—can be ethically separated from using the resulting cell lines for research....

Marshaling R&D Support

Federal support for research and development is a critical enabler of wealth and opportunity creation, and a key element in assuring a higher quality of life for our citizens. There is broad consensus on this point among both economists and policymakers. But federal R&D spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined significantly in recent years. Throughout most of the 1960s, we spent roughly 2% of GDP on publicly financed research. This level of investment served to firmly establish the U.S. as the scientific and technical leader in nearly every field. In the early 1970s, with the end of the Apollo program, federal R&D declined to roughly 1.2% of GDP, where it remained throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. In the past decade, however, there has been a steady and disturbing decline in federal R&D spending to a current level of approximately 0.8% of GDP. We now find ourselves in a situation ...

Research issues in early childhood caries.

Research is needed to establish what nomenclature and case definition for early childhood caries (ECC) are most relevant to health care professionals and to the public. Profiles or indexes for predicting the prevalence of ECC in communities should be developed on the basis of the socioeconomic factors, immigrant status and ethnic/racial backgrounds of populations. Future research should target risk factors of ECC, particularly prenatal and perinatal histories, nutritional status and microbiologic factors. Determining the relation of malnutrition of infants and young children, low birthweight, complicated pregnancies and traumatic births with the development of enamel linear hypoplasia deserves research attention. Factors that affect how and when infants and young children are colonized by mutans streptococci also need further study. The evaluation of chemotherapeutic preventive agents will likely yield more fruitful interventions for prevention than trying to change behaviors. Research in young children to prevent ECC, however, has particular ethical considerations. Withholding treatments or administering placebos to vulnerable subjects is not acceptable. Consequently, future clinical research likely will determine the relative rather than the absolute effectiveness of preventive regimens; the former requires large sample sizes and may necessitate multi-center studies. Human studies may be hampered by problems of recruitment, compliance and transiency of subjects. Because federal support for research on dental caries has declined in recent years, a special initiative that focuses specifically on ECC may be necessary to obtain adequate funding for research on the disease.

Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America

Reviewed by: Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America Joel D. Howell Keith Wailoo. Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America. Henry E. Sigerist Series in the History of Medicine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. xii + 288 pp. $39.95. As a marker of destiny, a carrier of familial traits—indeed, as the very “river of life”—human blood has long been invested with profound cultural significance. Yet today, as we near the end of the twentieth century, physicians often claim to make medical decisions based on precise, objective, scientific measurements of the blood. Does history matter? Is our reading of blood still grounded in cultural understandings? In this excellent book, Keith Wailoo suggests that the answer to both questions is “Yes.” His analysis uses ideas about the blood as windows onto a changing century to illuminate relationships among different types of physicians, among different medical institutions, and, perhaps most important, between people who have come to be labeled (or not labeled) as having a disease of the blood. As Wailoo shows throughout the book, there has always been a complex relationship between diseases and technology (and by this term he means far more than simply the physical artifacts). On the one hand, a disease such as anemia came to be constructed as something to be best explained by the use of technology. On the other hand, the use of that technology gave legitimacy to the people who could (and would use) those tools. Technology was used to help create identities for both patient and physician in ways that were flexible enough to serve the needs of many different constituents, often at the same time. Wailoo’s astute reading is relevant to the use of diagnostic technologies in general, not only those used to study blood. A particular strength of the book vis-à-vis the history of technology is the attention paid to technologies that were thought applicable at the time, whether or not we now hold them to be useful. Wailoo takes a number of diseases as emblematic. Countless nineteenth-century family physicians employed “moral management” for their female patients diagnosed with chlorosis. At one time a central disease concept, chlorosis disappeared from center stage by the 1920s, which reflected both a change in the structure of medical practice and a shift in attitudes toward diseases of women—the latter shift reflecting what Wailoo terms “medicine’s enduring desire to define, through technology, a legitimate female identity” (p. 45). Splenic anemia localized anemia to a particular organ, an abdominal organ that had been of relatively little interest until early twentieth century surgeons (the dominant medical specialists of the age) found it to be within easy grasp, and used it to label a new anemia as one susceptible to surgical intervention. Aplastic anemia led medical professionals to look more closely at the industrial world that was increasingly their patients’ workplace. They were forced to grapple with “medical” issues that included legal and social values—if industrial practices caused aplastic anemia, should the workplace be made safer, or should “susceptible workers” be removed? In other words, did the illness indicate a problem with the patient, or with the environment? The development of a cure for pernicious anemia highlighted newly formed relationships between universities [End Page 585] and pharmaceutical industries. Sickle-cell anemia forced those who studied it to deal with issues of race and racial identity. Earlier in the century, Emmel’s blood test was used to label people as members of a specific race; a change to hemoglobin electrophoresis may have led to different formulations for the disease, but the meaning of the technology was no less embedded in a specific social context. In the final chapter, Wailoo considers how federal support of medical research has changed the world of blood and blood diseases. He examines leukemia and the formation of the specialty of hematology-oncology, as well as how the technology that enabled easier diagnosis of the sickle-cell trait forced patients and caregivers to confront new social dilemmas. He weaves each of these stories into a world that was changing not only outside medicine but also within, as physicians (and technicians...

Lobbying for Higher Education in Washington

H H fall federal pro^ft U grams, those that ^^ ^m provide for student ^^^^^^ financial assistance have the most pervasive effect on American higher education. Federal support for research primarily affects a couple hundred major research universities; Title IX has its principal impact on approximately 300 institutions with Division I athletic programs; affirmative action in admissions is, of course, primarily relevant only to the 300 or 400 selective colleges and universities. Institutions in these three categories research universities, Division I athletics, and competitive admissions tend to be an overlapping group... for example, Duke, Georgetown, Stanford, the University of Michigan. The point is that while relatively small subsets of institutions feel the

Senators breathe new life into efforts to double federal dollars for R&D

At a press conference held Thursday, June 25, Senator Bill Frist (R‐Tenn.) announced that he and Senator Jay Rockefeller (D‐W.Va.) were introducing a bill to double federal support for research and development (R&D) over the next 12 years.This latest development gives a boost to legislation introduced last October by Senators Phil Gramm (R‐Tex.) and Joe Lieberman (D‐Conn.) to double R&D spending in a decade. The earlier bill, numbered S. 1305, garnered only 18 Senate cosponsors in 8 months and appears to be mired in the Labor and Human Resources Committee with little hope of moving to the Senate floor.