Fattening up NIH

Efforts by patient advocates, scientists and the biotech industry to persuade Congress to support biomedical research have been wildly successful, yielding an embarrassment of riches for the National Institutes of Health.

President Bush's first budget proposes the largest increase in NIH's history, $2.8 billion (16.5%). And he has committed to an even larger $4.1 billion increase next year as he and members of Congress from both parties have agreed that NIH should receive at least $27 billion in the fiscal year beginning in October 2002, double the fiscal 1997 level. ...