COMMENTARY: To vaccinate our economy, boost support for the NIH – By Gary K. Michelson (Fortune) / June 13 2021
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Thanks to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, fostered by unprecedented government investment in high-risk vaccine research, we are starting to see the shaky semblance of an end to the worst of the pandemic—a pandemic that is estimated will cost the U.S. $16 trillion.
Now is the time to vaccinate the economy and bolster our ability to respond to tomorrow’s emerging public health threats by investing heavily in biomedical research with its transformative potential.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world’s single largest funder of medical research, the very fuel that feeds the American engine of medical discovery and the linchpin to our country’s post-COVID economic recovery.
The Biden administration is proposing to fund the NIH at $52 billion in 2022, a 21% increase over the current level. It’s a good start, but not nearly enough.
