The National Institutes of Health fund the bulk of biology and medical research in the United States, to the tune of about $28 billion a year. If you've benefited from a medical or biotech advance (and if you grew up in the U.S., you have), you've benefited from your tax dollars at work in the NIH. Money from the NIH comes with, as everywhere else, strings attached. 2008 brings three new strings, one of which is quite positive. Here are the new legislative mandates for 2008, taken from this document:
- All publications resulting from NIH funding must be made public access within a year of publication. This is a huge positive, and serves the NIH's mission of supporting biomedical and health advances in the U.S. far more than the old practice of many journals of keeping data sequestered from anyone who couldn't afford a subscription.
- Funds can't be used to disseminate false or deliberately misleading scientific information. This isn't really a change from prior policy, but it's good to see the message reinforced.
- NIH funds can't be used to employ illegal aliens. Honestly, biomedical research is not an area with a substantial illegal labor force, but this proviso does fit the mood of the times.
These new (or "new" in one case) requirements are added on top of a set of restrictions from the prior fiscal year. These include:
- Salaries paid for by NIH funds are capped, so you can't pull in millions (or even hundreds of thousands) on NIH money. It's worth noting that you do have to justify each salary when the NIH is funding you, so this process undergoes heavy oversight, in addition to the absolute cap.
- Funds can't be used for lobbying.
- NIH money can't fund needle exchange. This is a shame, because needle exchange programs work, but many people in our country have yet to reconcile their desire to help others with their desire to punish addicts.
- You must acknowledge in press releases and publications that you received NIH funding. Basically, it's a "your tax dollars at work" sign for science. Good to have it there.
- NIH money can't be used to fund an abortion. This does not come up in biomedical research, of course.
- Funds can't be used for research that uses human embryos or generates stem cell lines.
- Finally, NIH money can't be used to promote the legalization of any schedule I drug...unless there is "significant medical evidence of a therapeutic advantage to the use of such drug or other substance or that federally sponsored clinical trials are being conducted to determine therapeutic advantage".
I obviously don't agree with all these provisos, but it's good for those of you who are American citizens to be able to see what requirements are placed on the researchers who you fund to bring you biomedical advances.