Page images
PDF
EPUB

provides visability to other scientists, laymen, Congress and the Administration. An Institute has a statuatory council, which can provide guidance in programs and policy. This is particularly important in a field where medical advance may have profound social impact. An Instititue is something the elderly can identify with and from it can seek and receive support.

Service is sometimes a bad word at the NIH, but consider some of the accomplishments of Mental Health, the Heart Institute and the Cancer Institute in informing the public and improving the public health. Shouldn't an Institute of Aging play a similar role?

There is no effective voice which speaks for the health of the elderly. Certainly not the AoA and not Social and Rehabilitation Services. Why shouldn't there be a National Institute of Health initiated in the Senate in the year of the White House Conference on Aging?

4.

Testimony on a Bill to Create a Commission on Aging Research

F. Marott Sinex, Ph.D.
June 1, 1971

In the fall of 1969 it seemed to a group of biologists,under the leadership of Bernie Strehler at the University of Southern California, that planning for the expanded Intramural Program of the Gerontology Center in Baltimore was bogged down in many problems not concerned with rational scientific planning of research on aging. Discussions of this problem led to the suggestion by Senator Harrison Williams that a Commission be created to study scientific priorities and make recommendations as to programs. The Commission was to consult with a board of scientific advisors and was to receive funds to implement its

program.

This bill was first introduced in 1969. No hearings were held until today, in spite of the efforts of the Gerontological Society and the American Association for Aging Research. I appreciate the opportunity to comment on this bill before this committee. This is actually a much more complex piece of legislation than the bill creating an Institute of Aging.

The Commission is not limited to the consideration of the research program of the NIH. This is deliberate because we believe the National Laboratories at

Oak Ridge, Brookhaven, Argonne and Pine Bluff should share in the responsibility for mounting programs of aging research. So should the National Science Foundation. We believe that a stock taking on where we are in aging research and dis

68-179 O-71-6

2.

cussion about what types of programs should be particularly encouraged does
have merit. The path may be more obscure than the path to the bomb or the
moon but it is there. A Commission might help us traverse it sooner.

A behavioral component was later added to the Commission bill. I con
sider this very important. Somewhere, whether at Child Health, Mental Health,
or Neurological Disease and Blindness, there must be a program involving bio-
chemists, neurologists, psychologists and psychiatrists, in the study of senile
deterioration. The artificial separation of organic brain disease from behavioral
disturbances is not the way.to clear our nursing homes of disturbed patients.

The method of fun'ing research under the commission is not clear. The
five year quinquennium provision does not provide much time to recruit personnel,
and grow old animals. A good Commission may wish to make its own recommenda-
tions about implementation.

It is not necessarily intended that the implementation should be less costly
than some existing programs. All kinds of models come to mind, ranging from
the Atomic Energy Commission to the most innocous of Presidential Commissions.
A Commission is not a substitute or a sop for an Institute. An Institute can
not speak for utilization of appropriate federal facilities outside of the NIH. It
may have difficulty in monitoring its own house. It can furnish a Commission with
important data, and provide part of the conceptual frame work.

Ideally, the Commission and the Institute should be mutually supportive in concepts and funding, but independent in operation.

MICHIGAN

[graphic]

Senator EAGLETON. Dr. Eisdorfer?

STATEMENT OF DR. CARL EISDORFER, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY
AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR STUDY OF AGING AND HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT, DUKE UNIVERSITY, DURHAM, N.C.

Dr. EISDORFER. Thank you.

Senator Eagleton, I am Carl Eisdorfer, director of the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development at Duke University, Durham, N.C.

Currently, I hold office as president-elect of the Gerontological Society, a group of several thousand medical, biological, behavioral, and social scientists in the United States.

I am here to testify in support of S. 887 to provide for the establishment of a National Institute of Geronotology within the National Institutes of Health. I will try to summarize my reasons for supporting the creation and adequate funding of an Institute of Gerontology as briefly as possible since I feel that the current situation almost speaks for itself in compelling such an organization.

As a matter of fact, sir, a few years ago I might not have given my wholehearted support for such a bill, but the times have proved me wrong. Through no fault of those persons responsible for the aging program in the NIH, the structure of that organization has failed to be adequate to its mission.

I feel that there are several important reasons for the establishment of an Institute of Gerontology, all having to do with the most fundamental issue; namely, the need to advance health related research and training in the interest of understanding the medical, biological, and psychosocial processes of aging and the problems of the aged in the United States.

The first reason has to do with the orderly functioning of the National Institutes of Health in relation to the scientific and professional community who must deal with that agency. The second and perhaps most important issue has to do with the integrity of priorities and programs for much of the research and training concerning the health of the aged and the third has to do with policymaking concerning these matters.

In a report to Senator Williams' Special Committee on Aging several years ago, December 1967, I pointed out that research in aging from the Federal Government involved a wide number and variety of agencies each treating aging as a low priority item.

I suggested then that there was a need for bringing together and organizing in a central unit a focus for health related research and training programs in aging which would encompass the areas of biological, psychological, behavioral, and social factors as these relate to the current future well-being of older Americans.

To date, there is still no unit in the Federal Establishment which has a mandate for developing programs related to the health of older citizens that is not compromised by sharing its resources with a diversity of other programs and is headed by individuals who are competent and committed to the field.

I also pointed out that the priorities for research into aging seemed to be very poor and predicted that if funds became tighter, those pro

1

grams having importance for aging, no matter what their quality or potential payoff, would be differentially hurt and might be entirely cut out. I am sorry to say, Senator Eagleton, that this prediction has been almost entirely accurate.

As a scientist and physician-I am a psychologist as well as a psychiatrist I have often been accused of looking into a crystal ball and this time I regret it was an accurate vision.

Thus, the first mission that a National Institute of Gerontology could serve is that of an identifiable agency where scientists and educators interested in aging could help in developing programs and expertise in understanding the aged and aging process.

This is often unobtainable within the limitations of the current aging program of the National Institutes of Health, a program which you know, sir, is one of five program areas in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

As I mentioned earlier, this hearing is being held at an extremely timely moment because it gives me the opportunity to point out the consequences of our failure to protect the program in aging within the National Institutes of Health by guarding its fiscal integrity.

The fiscal 1971 budget for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development was approximately $94 million as compared with a proposed budget for fiscal 1972 of $103 million. It might have been assumed that this $9 million increase would have a positive effect on research and training in aging within the Institute, particularly in this year of the White House Conference on Aging.

I think it is essential, however, that we recognize what will actually happen. It appears to be the case that not only will the increased funding in the NICHD go primarily into the population control center as well as the child health programs, but, in fact, funds will be cut from the aging program in order to bring those two up to desirable levels.

Despite the approximately $6 million increase in research, and $211⁄2 million increase in training, the budget for the population control center will require operational funds of approximately $3 million more than has been made available through the increase of the total NICHD budget.

According to current plans, this $3 million must be picked up by cutting the existing program within the Institute. Since the Institute priorities include increasing the area of child health by approximately a million dollars, the remaining programs are suffering acutely. Thus, the Adult Development and Aging Branch which has usually involved approximately 10 percent of the NICHD budget, dropping down to about 9 percent or below in the last year or so, will have to give up even more funds.

It is my understanding that the research grant program in aging will suffer an approximately $1.34 million cut projected for next year; that is from $3.592 to $2.251 million, a 373-percent drop.

The meaning of this cut should be made quite clear to the committee, Senator. This means that because there was no way of protecting the aging program within the NICHD, funds will be moved to other programs and there will be no new starts for research in aging in fiscal 1972.

[ocr errors]

+

« PreviousContinue »