Answer: The Division of Research Resources does not support any research project grants and thus, our funding decisions are not based on research project grant paylines. Question: What percentage of grants will you fund in both years? Answer: The Division of Research Resources does not fund any research project grants. WHERE TO CUT Question: If faced with a major budget cutback, what are your priorities? Where could cuts be made without impairing essential research? Answer: In making reductions from the budget submitted to you in January we have attempted to develop a budget which maintains a viable research program for FY 1982 and strikes a balance among research grants, in-house activities and training. While these reductions will not impair essential research, further cuts may alter this balance as well as our research capability. Question: How much can be saved through more efficient management, less official travel and fewer consultant contracts? Answer: In 1981 cuts were made in travel, consultant services, procurement contracts and personnel compensation because of the hiring freeze. Further reductions in consultant services were made in 1982. Additional cuts in these areas in FY 1982 could not be absorbed without affecting essential research activities. Question: Please provide for the record the effects of various levels of funding reduction on your major activities. Answer: The budget justification recently submitted to the Congress has attempted to depict the effects of reductions made from the budget proposals submitted in January. These justifications clearly show the levels of funding reductions by budget mechanism and major disease category. COST EFFICIENCY OF PRIMATE BREEDING IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR Question: Wouldn't it be cheaper to let private enterprise take care of this problem? Answer: Past experience has shown that, in general, private enterprise has not been willing to bear the rather significant costs associated with the initial establishment of primate breeding colonies without cost-sharing or supplemental funding arrangements from other sources (e.g., federal, pharmaceutical industry). Based on available information, costs of primate breeding in our contracts are comparable to those of private enterprise. Question: Is this possible? Could you save money? Answer: Although no monetary savings would be anticipated, we believe it to be a desirable goal for private enterprise to engage in routine primate breeding production for the biomedical community. An exception would be for the highly specialized research needs of the DRR-supported Regional Primate Research Centers, where breeding on location at each Center will continue to be necessary. FUNDING OF GENERAL CLINICAL RESEARCH CENTERS BY PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS Question: To what extent have you looked into this possibility or into a cost-sharing approach? What can be done to reduce federal costs? Answer: During the past 10 years several steps have been taken to reduce the costs of operating these Centers. These include recovery of nearly $12 million per year from third party insurance carriers for the care of sick patients on the Center and conversion of inpatient studies to less expensive outpatient studies wherever feasible. Third party insurance carriers have vigorously resisted paying research costs on patients who do not require hospitalization for their disease. In our experience, medical schools and hospitals have been unable to assume the high costs of maintaining a quality clinical research effort once a Center is terminated. CARTER RESCISSION Question: The Carter Budget proposed a rescission of $10.5 million in the Division for fiscal year 1981. If this rescission was allowed to stand, what would its impact be on your work? 4 Answer: The administration is committed to Federal support of biomedical research activities, but as a part of a general effort to achieve economies and reduce lower priority activities, the Carter administration proposed a rescission of $10,561,000. Within overall funding constraints, priority will be given to stabilizing support for research resources necessary to provide support to biomedical research investigators. This proposed rescission will involve the elimination of 13 ongoing renewal grant awards and 7 renewal research and development contracts. of the existing 75 General Clinical Research Centers will be phased out under this rescission, 3 Laboratory Animal Sciences grants will terminate, and 6 of the 80 existing Minority Biomedical Support grants will not be funded. Also, there will be a $1,694,000 reduction in the funds available for the Biomedical Research Support Program formula for distribution to eligible institutions. In addition, 4 proposed new Minority Biomedical Support grants wil not be funded, and 10 new Biotechnology Resource grants that were proposed as part of the Office of Science and Technology Policy initiative will go unfunded. The Reagan administration has proposed a rescission of $10.7 million for the Division of Research Resources in 1981. In addition to the reductions indicated above for the Carter rescission, the Reagan rescission proposes the elimination of $184,000 for institutional allowances and for indirect cost payments to institutions receiving National Research Service Awards. The reason for eliminating these payments is that no similar costs are levied upon non-federally supported students. IMPACT OF STABILIZATION ON DRR Question: You say that stabilization of Research Grants among the other Institutes will put "increased demand" on DRR supported resources in 1982. What impact would the proposed rescission have on your ability to meet this "increased demand"? Answer: The proposed Reagan rescission in 1981 will reduce NIH funding levels by $126 million. NIH will be able to support 4,797 new and competing research project grants at the rescission level. Many of the investigators on these awards will need access to specialized research resources to begin their research and will create an increased demand on DRR to provide these resources. The Reagan rescission proposal for DRR of $10,745,000 will have the following impact on our ability to meet this increased demand: In the Clinical Research Program four centers will receive phaseout budgets. Throughout all the Centers, a total of 131 positions will be abolished, of which 93 are nursing positions. There will be no new CLINFO's established in 1981, 5 new CLINFO's had been proposed in 1981, but none will be funded under the rescission. There will be no increase in x-ray work or laboratory tests. The number of funded research beds will decrease from 604 in 1980 to 593 in 1981. The number of "A" research patient days (those which are normal research patients and from which the Centers receive no third party health insurance reimbursements) will decrease by 19,993 days in 1981 from 1980. The total research patient days (Type "A" & "B") supported in 1981 will be 164,000; a reduction of 11,000 patient days from the 175,000 patient days that could have been funded at the Continuing Resolution level. In the Biotechnology Research Program $3.9 million of the $5.0 million Office of Science Technology Policy initiative to expand efforts to provide additional regional instrumentation facilities for biomedical and behavioral scientists will not be started. $3.0 million of the OSTP initiative that will not be started will be in the area of Biological Structure and Function. Resources that will not be funded are in the areas of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Laser technology, and Synchroton radiation. The other $0.9 million of the OSTP initiative that will not be started is in the area of state-of-the-art computer resources which assist researchers in the analysis and interpretation of laboratory and clinical data. In the Laboratory Animal Sciences and Primate Research Program DRR will support 3 less laboratory animal sciences resource grants consisting of 1 animal model grant, 1 institutional animal resource improvement project, and 1 diagnostic laboratory. Also, 4 primate breeding contracts and 1 animal model contract will be terminated as a result of these reductions. In the Biomedical Research Support Program the percentage of BRS formula awards to total NIH Research grants will go down from 2.0% to 1.9%. The average value of a BRSG award will be reduced 3%. The average number of subprojects funded at each institution will be reduced by one, from 17 in 1980 to 16 in 1981. In the Minority Biomedical Support Program four new awards that had been planned in 1981 will not be funded. Six renewal awards will not be funded at the larger predominantly majority institutions. Approximately 64 approved projects will go unfunded. Approximately 50 minority faculty, 80 undergraduate and 30 graduate students will have their support terminated. The MBS funding problem will be compounded because reimbursable support of the MBS program by NIH categorical institutes will be limited. We expect a 20% reduction in support from other BID's in 1981. This will put further demands on DRR to pick up this other support. JOHN E. FOGARTY INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY IN THE HEALTH SCIENCES STATEMENT OF DR. CLAUDE J. M. LENFANT, ACTING DIRECTOR ACCOMPANIED BY: DR. DONALD S. FREDRICKSON, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH DR. VIDA H. BEAVEN, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH ANTHONY ITTEILAG, ACTING DEPUTY PREPARED STATEMENT ASSISTANT SECRETARY, Senator EAGLETON. Our next witness will be Dr. Claude Lenfant, Acting Director of the John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. The Fogarty Center provides advanced studies on international aspects of biomedical research, and supports science exchanges in the United States and other countries under various bilateral agreements. Dr. Lenfant, we welcome you. Dr. LENFANT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With your permission, we would like to submit the statement for the record, and I would like to make some additional brief comments. [The statement follows:] |