Sorry for the lack of original content in this diary, but a call to action from the University of Iowa just landed in my email box, and the legislation it's protesting is getting slipped through the House quietly, so time is of the essence.
The email (I x'd out addresses to foil spammers) follows below the fold:
From: xxxxxxxxxxx@uiowa.edu
Subject: [UnivAdm] De-funding of NIH Grants
Date: June 28, 2005 6:26:39 PM CDT
To: "All faculty, staff, and students":;
Reply-To: xxxxxxxxx@uiowa.edu
Dear members of the University community,
We write to bring to your attention a serious issue that has arisen in Congress and the measures that the University is taking to deal with it. The issue affects a distinguished member of our faculty and the Department of Psychology, which as you may recall were the subjects of a violent attack at the hands of the Animal Liberation Front last November. Although the two cases are not related, both are damaging to our mission of research, scholarship and creativity.
Last week, language contained in the House FY2006 Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Bill not only eliminated grant funding for the research of UI Professor Edward Wasserman, one of our distinguished and internationally-recognized faculty members, it also threatened to undermine the peer-review process with narrow political considerations without regard to scientific merit or established executive branch and Congressional oversight.
The details of what has happened in Congress and our response are outlined in a letter (see link below) that we are sending to Iowa's two U.S. Senators, Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley. We are not alone in our concern or response. Professional organizations such as the American Association of Universities, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and others have written to Congress opposing this language and reaffirming the importance of the peer review process in determining the merit of scientific research.
We are writing to make you aware of this issue because it is so
fundamental to the discovery of new knowledge, yet was passed with little debate or notice in the news media. If you have any questions, please contact us. We also urge you to make the Department of Psychology and Professor Wasserman aware of your continuing support for their efforts to advance the body of knowledge in their discipline.
Link to Letters:
http://research.uiowa.edu/vpr/downloads/harkin-grassley-jun05.pdf
Michael Hogan
Executive Vice President and Provost
Meredith Hay
Vice President for Research
The above-mentioned PDF is the same two-page letter twice, addressed once to Sen. Harkin and once to Sen. Grassley.
Rep. Neugebauer's (R-Lubbock, TX) argument, from H5139 of the Congressional Record (missing apostrophes, odd capitalization, and other strange things are part of the original text):
Mr. Chairman, my amendment will prohibit the National Institute of Mental Health from further funding two grants whose research falls outside the mission set my NIMH. The amendment would not reduce overall research funding. Rather, it would focus the funding toward serious mental health issues.
According to NIMH, its goal is to "reduce the burden of mental illness and behavioral disorders" and prevent "disabling conditions that affect millions of Americans."
This is a noble goal. Serious mental health diseases such as autism and Alzheimers do affect the lives of many Americans. And finding cures and treatments for these debilitating diseases is something we all hope for.
This is why I was curious when I saw that two NIMH grants have been going on for years that do not focus on our most pressing mental health issues.
For nearly 15 years, more than $1.5 million has been awarded to study "Perceptual Bases of Visual Concepts." According to NIMH, this study trains pigeons to distinguish between natural and man made objects.
Now on its fifth year, a second study has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to determine how the self-esteem of newlyweds affects their marriage. Now, I am a fan of marriage. In fact, I have actively participated in one for 35 years. But what does this research contribute to the effort to find beter treatment, or even a cure, for Alzheimers or autism or Schizophrenia? Whatever scientific merits these research projects may have, they are not directed at serious mental health disorders.
Sending millions of dollars to research that falls out side the mission of NIMH is problematic enough. However, this problem is compounded when you look at the list of grants that have been rejected over the same time period. If you look at the list, you will find grant after grant which specifically targets serious mental health diseases, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
According to a 2003 study done by a group of mental health professionals and entitled, "A Federal Failure in Psychiatric Research," only 1 out of every 17, 2002 research grants is reasonably likely to improve the treatment and quality of life for individuals presently affected by some serious mental health illness.
Some here today may feel hesitant about ending these grants. But, ladies and gentleman, as members of Congress, we must become better stewards of taxpayer dollars.
I urge my colleagues to support reseasrch on serious mental health issues by supporting the Neugebauer amendment.
Notes:
- The study that Rep. Neugebauer refers to was published by Public Citizen. It's available on their site. They helpfully define "serious mental illness" as "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and severe forms of depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder."
- The study that Iowa is concerned about, and which the Congressman mentions, is basic research toward an understanding of autism, which even in its mild forms plays havoc with perception. You have to understand a problem before you can hope to offer a solution.
- Who is more likely to understand the problem: NIMH, or the esteemed gentleman from Lubbock, TX? As a general principle I would rather have specialists in a given field doing peer review of medical research than lawmakers.
- The Congressman seems to imply that there is no, or less, value in studying animals in order to learn about humans...
- I know less about the newlywed-couples study, but from here it seems like a fairly straightforward way to look at depression. Maybe not extreme depression, but ideally you'd prefer to prevent that, instead of treating it.