f*ck the NIH!

During the 90s, there was a big push to increase NIH funding. Indeed, funding was doubled over the course of several years.

Well, the Bush administration has not only not kept up pace with the doubling, they've not even bothered to keep funding levels commensurate with the rate of inflation.

In other words: they are defunding the NIH.

Science Blogger DrugMonkey has the story.

A recent NEJM article shows how the recent spending cuts (and that's what freezing spending really is) have reversed the doubling to the point where the effect of the doubling years has effectively been undone. We are on target to revert back to the line of projected growth that the NIH would have been at had the doubling never occurred!

Brilliant!

(And I say this not only as a former employee of the NIH who might have been kept on had the hiring freeze been in place. But it's worth including that caveat.)