The American Heart Association supports the American Cures Act, introduced on March 12 by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), co-chair of the Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition and Senate Majority Whip. The legislation would create a mandatory funding mechanism to help support the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical and Prosthetic Research Program, and the Department of Defense Health Program. Representative Anna Eshoo introduced a comparable bill in the House. Check out the post below from the Senator's page to learn more.
[WASHINGTON, DC] With a decline in federal biomedical research threatening our standing as a leader in discovery and innovation and our global competitiveness, Assistant Majority Leader *** Durbin (D-IL) today introduced the American Cures Act, to support the future of research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Department of Defense Health Program (DHP), and the Veterans Medical & Prosthetics Research Program.
"In the last two centuries, U.S. government support for scientific research has helped split the atom, defeat polio, conquer space, create the Internet, map the human genome, and much more. No nation has ever made such a significant investment in science, and no nation’s scientists have ever done more to improve the quality of life on Earth," Durbin said. "But America’s place as the world’s innovation leader is at risk as we are falling behind in our investment in biomedical research."
In 2011, fifty-three percent of all funding for basic research came from the federal government. Yet as a percentage of the total federal budget, the federal government spends two-thirds less on research and development today than it did in 1965. At NIH – the foremost biomedical research institute in the world – the number of research grants the agency is able to fund has declined every year for the past 10 years. Continue reading here
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