Senator TAFT. The next witness is Mr. Cecil Brickfield and Mr. Peter Hughes, American Association of Retired Persons. STATEMENT OF CYRIL BRICKFIELD, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, NATIONAL RETIRED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS; ACCOMPANIED BY PETER W. HUGHES, LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, NATIONAL RETIRED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS Mr. BRICKFIELD. Thank you very much. Senator TAFT. We would be glad to have you submit any prepared statement for the record and make any remarks from it or any other way you wish to present your testimony. Mr. BRICKFIELD. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. We were advised that when we came to testify that in addition to testifying on the bill relating to a nutrition program for the elderly, we would also be permitted to speak to the bill, S. 887, to establish a National Institute of Gerontology, and S. 1925, the Research on Aging Act. Senator TAFT. We would be glad to have your views on those as well. Mr. BRICKFIELD. We have two prepared statements which I would like to submit for the record, but I would like to speak extemporaneously and give the gist of that testimony. Senator TAFT. They will be incorporated in the record at the end of your testimony. Mr. BRICKFIELD. Mr. Chairman: I am Cyril Brickfield, legislative counsel, National Retired Teachers Association and the American Association of Retired Persons. I am accompanied by Peter Hughes, our legislative representative. We have a combined membership of approximately 2,700,000 members. We are very much interested in the establishment of a separate Institute on Gerontology out at the National Institutes of Health. Gerontology, as we understand it, is a relatively new science, Mr. Chairman. It is less than 30 years old. It is in need of leadership, trained people, technical specialists, in need of research facilities, in need of money. HEW tells us that 85 percent of the persons 65 and over could be helped by more adequate research either in delaying or mitigating the effects of the aging process. Yet today less than 1 percent of research time is spent on the aging process. And I have here, Mr. Chairman, three documents which I would like to offer to the Chair Senator TAFT. One percent of medical research? Mr. BRICKFIELD. No. Research in sociology which would include medical research as well as social gerontology research, biological research, psychological, as well as medical research.-I have here the NICHD budget, Senator. As you know, Senator, the NICHD, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, includes not only youth and population matters, pharmacology, and other things, but also aging, and I would direct your attention to the sheet that is labeled "NICHD Budgets (In Thousands)." Do you have that one? Senator TAFT. Yes. Mr. BRICKFIELD. All right. Looking at the middle column where it says "President's budget 1972," you will see the budget for population research is $37,718,000. That amount is being asked by the Administration. In "Child Health, Research" the request is for $46,903,000. And then you come down to "Aging" and you will see that the President's request for 1972 is $7,180,000, which I am sure you will agree doesn't compare too well with the others. Looking at the category of "Aging," if you will look under the left column, 1971, you will see that in 1971 $8,533,000 was requested as against $7,180,000 this year, which is a reduction of $1,353,000, or a reduction of 15 percent. Senator TAFT. Mr. Brickfield, let me just say that this material will be incorporated as part of the record. (The following was subsequently supplied for the record:) Authority The The Health Research Facilities Program was authorized initially in Fiscal Year 1957 in Title VII A of the Public Health Service Act. authority has been extended five times since then and is now effective throug Fiscal Year 1971. The program is administered by N.I.H. Purpose Eligit To provide matching grants (50-50) for construction of facilities for research and research training in the sciences related to health. applicants include all non-Federal, nonprofit institutions competent to engag in such activities. This is essentially the only source of Federal funding for such facilities. The program is designed to provide support for the facilities needed to undertake the research and research training supported b the N.I.H. extramural research and training grant programs. $15 million "held in reserve" (i.e., not released for obligation) by Bureau of the Budget. **$2.8 million of $15 million reserve released. Balance of $12.2 million released in Fiscal Year 1969. Administration won't ask for money Fiscal Year 1970 Preparing now for 1971 to Bureau of the Budget. Since the start of the program in FY-1957, a total of $460,000,000 has been awarded to construct or remodel about 18.5 million per square feet of space in almost 1200 projects in 406 institutions in every State of the Union. Current and Future Needs At the present time (March 1969) there are 72 million in Councilapproved projects in the backlog awaiting funding, and over $150 million of additional applications anticipated (from letters notifying N.I.H. of intent to file applications). The backlog of approved projects is expected to exceed $100 million by June 1969. Preliminary findings are now available from a national survey of all nonprofit institutions conducting health-related research. The survey shows that about 15 million net square feet of space is needed to relieve overcrowding of presently available facilities and 10.2 million net square feet of the present inventory requires remodeling or replacement. By 1980, the institutions estimate they will need more than twice the 50M sq. ft. of research space they now have to accomodate the increased enrollment anticipated. The aggregate cost is certain to be several billion dollars. Analysis of Recent Experience The President's budget for Fiscal Year 1970, submitted to the Congress on January 15 by President Johnson, requests no appropriation for the Health Research Facilities Program despite a $20 million authorization for the program's appropriation for Fiscal Year 1970 and despite the anticipated backlog of approved-but-unfunded applications for HRF funds of well over $100 million dollars at the beginning of Fiscal Year 1970. - This action follows in the wake of an appropriation of $8.4 million the amount requested in FY-1969, $35 million in FY-1968, and $50 million in FY-1967. $300 million in approprations were authorized by the Congress for the Fiscal Years 1967 through 1970, which is slightly less than the $330 million recommended for authorization by the Administration for this period in the two bills extending the authority of the Title VII A program passed in 1965 and 1968. The 1965 bill authorized $280 million for the Fiscal Years 1967-1969, which was the amount requested by the President. The 1968 bill authorized $20 million for 1970 and $30 million for 1971, which is less than the President's request for authorization levels of $35 million and $50 million for these two years. In August 1965, President Johnson, in an unprecedented appearance at N.I.H. to sign the Health Research Amendments of 1965, publicly called attention to the importance of the HRF program, and the role of his Administration is raising the authorization level from $50 million per year in Fiscal Years 1963 through 1966 to $280 million for Fiscal Years 1967 through 1969 almost double what it has been. - However, the appropriation request for Fiscal Year 1967 was $15 million, for Fiscal Year, 1968, it was $35 million, for Fiscal Year 1969, $8.4 million and For Fiscal Year 1970, zero. Total appropriations requested in the President's budget for these three years were $58.4 million; total authorizations, $300 million. After asking Congress to authorize $330 millic the White House asked Congress to appropriate less than 20% of this amount. Congress actually appropriated $93.4 million $35 million more than requeste in FY-1967--which is 1/3 of the amount authorized for the FY-1967-1969, period. - A number of predictable effects will follow from the sharp decrease in HRF funds appropriated for FY-1967 and subsequent years: - 1. Several socially significant programs such as research on environmental hazards to health, population control, aging, pharmacology-toxicology will be unable to develop because facilities are not available to accomodate them. The special importance of such programs was recognized in the Health Manpower Act of 1968, which amended the Health Research Facilities authorizing legislation to give the Secretary of DHEW the authority to designate research facilities of special national or regional significance which would be eligible for grants at a more favorable matching ratio ( 66-2/3% Federal funds) than other facilities. to 25% of the HRF appropriation could be used for such projects. The new authority becomes effective in Fiscal Year 1970. Up 2. Many schools planning to expand enrollment will be unable to do so because they will be unable to recruit the faculty or provide the additional space to provide research training to graduate students. 3. The national inventory of research space will deteriorate in quality since a portion of the inventory must be renovated or replaced every year to maintain quality. This 4. Many institutions will be unable to comply with the requirements of PL 89-544, the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act. can be very serious particularly to many of the medical schools --because much research and clinical training is dependent on animals. Many medical schools have sub-standard animal facilities which must be replaced or remodeled extensively to comply with the law. 5. The richer institutions which have access to sufficient non-Federal funds to compensate at least partially for the decrease in Federal funds will be in a position to strengthen themselves at the expense of the poorer institutions which are more dependent on Federal funding. In effect, the cut in HRF funds will tend to make the rich richer and vice versa. It will be particularly rough on the private institutions. |