The National Health Institutes of the United States announced on February 7, which was immediately cutting about $ 4 billion a year in funds for biomedical researchers throughout the country. The measure would reduce the participation of NIH subsidies paid to “indirect” costs (laboratory, administration and operation) to 15 percent, reducing their Historical rate almost halfwayovernight.
In the announcement, NIH said that of approximately $ 35 billion spent financing 300,000 investigators throughout the country in 2023, $ 9 billion went to indirect costs. He argued that the movement at a lower indirect cost rate placed them in line with those established by private foundations.
February 10, in response, 22 states filed a federal demand“To protect their states and residents from the illegal action of the National Health Institutes (‘NIH’) that will devastate the critical research of public health in universities and research institutions in the United States.”
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Donald Trump proposed to drop the nih indirect cost rate for 10 percent in 2017But faced Congress resistance. As was the case then, the recently proposed cuts have activated generalized criticism of scientists, who say it In danger of patients and the strategic advantage of the United States in research. “Frankly, this means that the lives of my children and grandchildren, and maybe yours, will be increasingly sick,” medical professor Theodore Iwashyna at Johns Hopkins University He told CNN.
The indirect costs they eat in laboratory subsidies have a lot of time Activated complaints of scientists, but A 2014 Nature analysis He concluded that “in general, the statements of data data administrators that their real recovery of indirect costs often falls well below their negotiated rates.”
American scientist He spoke with David Skorton, president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents all medical granting schools in the United States, about this change and their effects on medicine.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How does this affect people who had never heard of “indirect” NIH with subsidies before before, but who get sick or know people who could benefit from a better medicine?
So, the idea of ​​biomedical research is multifaceted. Some of them are destined to help understand how life works. During a decade of research he led to the idea that the messaging RNA, a basic component of biology, for example, could actually be used as a platform for vaccines. That knowledge was very basic, very fundamental and finally fed on the speed of the WARP operation and the development of vaccines against Covid. So that is one thing.
Then there are research projects that could call applied research, such as cancer clinical trials. Unfortunately, someone has cancer, and basic research has shown that perhaps a new approach, such as immunotherapy, taking advantage of the immune system to combat cancer cells, could help. We need to find out, so you go to human clinical trials. These clinical trials are also research projects. And then there are research projects that have to do with the diagnosis of diseases. Do not treat it. I investigated a little at the beginning of my career in the medical images of computer processing of the cardiovascular system. The idea was to develop better diagnostic techniques that could lead to a faster way to diagnose a disease. To know the correct treatment.
All those obviously have different requirements. Fundamental research will often require a complicated and expensive laboratory, one that has the correct type of water, public services and capacities. And in that laboratory, there may be five research groups, and everyone is studying different questions. So, those individual research groups, which make their individual projects, will request [NIH] funds. For the general laboratory itself, for the cost of executing it, for public services, all these things, sometimes it cannot be attributed exactly to any project, because it really applies to all projects. And so, the physical laboratory operation, the cost of public services, the libraries that support it, are considered an installation called and administrative cost and, sometimes, is called indirect costs
Decades ago, the federal government came up with the idea that periodically, carefully, they would audit schools of medicine or universities that were doing the research to find out how much money they were really spending on things like the high -tech laboratory. [equipment]High speed data processing, safety, data storage. And these are the things that are reimbursed through facilities and administrative costs or indirect costs.
Just to be clear, these costs are necessary to investigate.
These are costs that are vital to administer laboratories in universities. They are simply not things like an individual pipette. They are functions, they say libraries or data centers, things you need to execute the laboratory. The reason why the federal government has a careful audit system is that it is recognized that the direct subsidy itself is financing the specific problem that is being studied. But you need this infrastructure to study many, many problems. So not, they are not ornaments.
So what happens when you cut this type of funds?
In fact, if the administrative costs of the installation are very, very severely as the NIH announced, the laboratories would literally darken. The investigation would stop. The march of the knowledge that someone, a relative, friend, neighbor, co -worker, needs to survive a disease or have a diagnosis or move forward with their lives after an accident, whatever it may be, They would suffer Because the investigation could not continue. Indirect costs are not flyers, and NIH subsidies do not pay the total cost of investigating for that reason.
And that is the intention, right? The idea for decades behind Nih to pay this subsidy was to build a gigantic and biomedical research colossus in the United States, which has become. These indirect costs are the way we did exactly that.
That is exactly correct. But the company was not being built only for the good of the rights of bluffing. It was built to serve the American people.
What do you think with the comparison with indirect cost rates for Foundation subsidies in NIH’s announcement? Is that a fair comparison?
Have Something online about thisBut a couple of high points: the bases often allow more flexibility than the federal government to allow administrative expenses. So that is a comparison of apples and oranges. And the bases often have a research approach that may differ from the federal government. When you think about the differences, in other words, what would the Foundation pay as a direct cost that the federal government does not, once it believes that, shows a face to face, the rates are not very different? .
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