APA Services strongly urged the Senate Appropriations Committee “to champion robust, sustained, and predictable funding for all biomedical research” in a statement for the recordopens in new window for the committee’s April 30 hearing, “Biomedical Research: Keeping America’s Edge in Innovationopens in new window.” “Fully incorporating and prioritizing psychological and behavioral science is essential– not merely optional– if we are to improve American health, strengthen the economy, and maintain the United States’ premier status in global health innovation,” said APA’s Chief Advocacy Officer Katherine McGuire, MSc.
McGuire noted that “our nation’s health challenges are complex, intertwining biological, psychological, and social factors. Therefore, a comprehensive approach to biomedical research that fully integrates behavioral and social sciences alongside biological inquiry is not merely beneficial but essential.” Decades of federally supported research, particularly through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have yielded profound insights into the mechanisms underlying behavior and mental processes, translating directly into tangible health benefits, she added.
In her opening statementopens in new window, Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) noted that the topic for the committee’s first full committee hearing speaks “to the high priority that this committee places on biomedical research. There is no investment that pays greater dividends to American families than our investment in this research, which can lead to lifesaving and life-enhancing discoveries.” Collins emphasized that our nation’s strategy of coordinating grant-based research at university and private labs through the federal science agencies has been an enormous success. As a result of this, the U.S. has been a world leader in scientific research and technological innovation for 75 years. She further noted that “the Administration's abrupt cancelation of grants, proposals to slash federal funding, and laying off scientists and technical experts with apparently little or no justification” is very troubling. “These actions put our leadership in biomedical innovation at real risk and must be reversed.”
Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) noted in her opening statementopens in new window that biomedical research is “an issue with long-standing bipartisan support” where members have worked together to “invest in advancing medical breakthroughs.” The investments give patients hope for the future. Murray noted that she was “deeply alarmed that President Trump has taken a wrecking ball to our biomedical research enterprise.” If the administration were to succeed, “they aren’t just going to grind medical research to a halt, they are going to send it careening backwards…World-class research institutions…will face massive shortfalls.” Murray noted that the “NIH cuts are not just cutting off promising future research, but undermining studies we are right in the middle of right now...Instead of supporting new talent, [the president] is slashing grants for our early career scientists.” She concluded by noting that the U.S. is the world leader in medical research. “But creating that was not an accident and maintaining it is not inevitable. It is a choice we make through our investments, one that has paid off on a scale that cannot be measured.
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