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Credit: Rhoda Baer
A new report suggests recent budget cuts to federal health programs in the US have had some negative consequences for hematology researchers.
The Coalition for Health Funding, an alliance of more than 90 public health advocacy organizations, invited scientists, public health advocates, and others to share stories of how they have been hurt by the budget cuts.
The resulting report is titled “Faces of Austerity, How Budget Cuts Hurt America’s Health.”
It details the negative effects the cuts have had on scientific discovery and innovation, scientists and health practitioners, health and social services, and government programs designed to respond to health hazards and natural disasters.
Among the stories included in the report are 2 from members of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), who detail how a decade of flat funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 5% budget cut in 2013 have shuttered labs and jeopardized tomorrow’s treatments.
“Most people I know have been affected,” said Debra Newman, PhD, an investigator at BloodCenter of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
“Their research funding has decreased and, consequently, so has the size of their laboratories because they cannot afford to employ the same number of staff. Talented investigators have started to leave research and go on to other things because they can’t support a research operation without money to run it.”
The other ASH member story is that of Christopher Porter, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Despite receiving an excellent score on an NIH grant application, Dr Porter was denied funding in 2013 amid budget cuts.
“My lab had been able to report exciting preliminary data, but we really needed supplemental funds to keep this project moving,” he said. “While our initial application to NIH scored high enough to have received funding in previous years, it was not within the current funding range.”
Drs Newman and Porter are among the first recipients of ASH Bridge Grants, awards first offered in 2012 for investigators who applied for competitive grants from NIH but were denied funding due to cuts. The awards are intended to “bridge” investigators to their next NIH grant.
While such supplementary grant funding programs are helpful, they cannot replace critical NIH funding that has been cut for hematology research, according to ASH.
“When biomedical research is under-funded, everybody loses,” said ASH President Linda J. Burns, MD, of the University of Minnesota.
“Scientists are forced to slow or suspend research because they no longer have the resources to continue searching for new treatments, and even cures, for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. We continue to urge Congress to support a balanced approach to deficit reduction that does not include further cuts to critical biomedical research and public health and safety programs.”
“Faces of Austerity” is available online at www.cutshurt.org. A related report, “Faces of Austerity: How Budget Cuts Have Made Us Sicker, Poorer, and Less Safe,” was published last November. 
Credit: Rhoda Baer
A new report suggests recent budget cuts to federal health programs in the US have had some negative consequences for hematology researchers.
The Coalition for Health Funding, an alliance of more than 90 public health advocacy organizations, invited scientists, public health advocates, and others to share stories of how they have been hurt by the budget cuts.
The resulting report is titled “Faces of Austerity, How Budget Cuts Hurt America’s Health.”
It details the negative effects the cuts have had on scientific discovery and innovation, scientists and health practitioners, health and social services, and government programs designed to respond to health hazards and natural disasters.
Among the stories included in the report are 2 from members of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), who detail how a decade of flat funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 5% budget cut in 2013 have shuttered labs and jeopardized tomorrow’s treatments.
“Most people I know have been affected,” said Debra Newman, PhD, an investigator at BloodCenter of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
“Their research funding has decreased and, consequently, so has the size of their laboratories because they cannot afford to employ the same number of staff. Talented investigators have started to leave research and go on to other things because they can’t support a research operation without money to run it.”
The other ASH member story is that of Christopher Porter, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Despite receiving an excellent score on an NIH grant application, Dr Porter was denied funding in 2013 amid budget cuts.
“My lab had been able to report exciting preliminary data, but we really needed supplemental funds to keep this project moving,” he said. “While our initial application to NIH scored high enough to have received funding in previous years, it was not within the current funding range.”
Drs Newman and Porter are among the first recipients of ASH Bridge Grants, awards first offered in 2012 for investigators who applied for competitive grants from NIH but were denied funding due to cuts. The awards are intended to “bridge” investigators to their next NIH grant.
While such supplementary grant funding programs are helpful, they cannot replace critical NIH funding that has been cut for hematology research, according to ASH.
“When biomedical research is under-funded, everybody loses,” said ASH President Linda J. Burns, MD, of the University of Minnesota.
“Scientists are forced to slow or suspend research because they no longer have the resources to continue searching for new treatments, and even cures, for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. We continue to urge Congress to support a balanced approach to deficit reduction that does not include further cuts to critical biomedical research and public health and safety programs.”
“Faces of Austerity” is available online at www.cutshurt.org. A related report, “Faces of Austerity: How Budget Cuts Have Made Us Sicker, Poorer, and Less Safe,” was published last November.
Credit: Rhoda Baer
A new report suggests recent budget cuts to federal health programs in the US have had some negative consequences for hematology researchers.
The Coalition for Health Funding, an alliance of more than 90 public health advocacy organizations, invited scientists, public health advocates, and others to share stories of how they have been hurt by the budget cuts.
The resulting report is titled “Faces of Austerity, How Budget Cuts Hurt America’s Health.”
It details the negative effects the cuts have had on scientific discovery and innovation, scientists and health practitioners, health and social services, and government programs designed to respond to health hazards and natural disasters.
Among the stories included in the report are 2 from members of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), who detail how a decade of flat funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 5% budget cut in 2013 have shuttered labs and jeopardized tomorrow’s treatments.
“Most people I know have been affected,” said Debra Newman, PhD, an investigator at BloodCenter of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
“Their research funding has decreased and, consequently, so has the size of their laboratories because they cannot afford to employ the same number of staff. Talented investigators have started to leave research and go on to other things because they can’t support a research operation without money to run it.”
The other ASH member story is that of Christopher Porter, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Despite receiving an excellent score on an NIH grant application, Dr Porter was denied funding in 2013 amid budget cuts.
“My lab had been able to report exciting preliminary data, but we really needed supplemental funds to keep this project moving,” he said. “While our initial application to NIH scored high enough to have received funding in previous years, it was not within the current funding range.”
Drs Newman and Porter are among the first recipients of ASH Bridge Grants, awards first offered in 2012 for investigators who applied for competitive grants from NIH but were denied funding due to cuts. The awards are intended to “bridge” investigators to their next NIH grant.
While such supplementary grant funding programs are helpful, they cannot replace critical NIH funding that has been cut for hematology research, according to ASH.
“When biomedical research is under-funded, everybody loses,” said ASH President Linda J. Burns, MD, of the University of Minnesota.
“Scientists are forced to slow or suspend research because they no longer have the resources to continue searching for new treatments, and even cures, for some of the world’s deadliest diseases. We continue to urge Congress to support a balanced approach to deficit reduction that does not include further cuts to critical biomedical research and public health and safety programs.”
“Faces of Austerity” is available online at www.cutshurt.org. A related report, “Faces of Austerity: How Budget Cuts Have Made Us Sicker, Poorer, and Less Safe,” was published last November.