NHC UPDATE
<< Return to September 2009 Council Currents
NHC Takes the Patient Message to New Leadership at FDA, OMB -September 2009
National Health Council (NHC) President Myrl Weinberg, Executive Vice President and COO Marc Boutin, and Assistant Vice President for Government Affairs and Programs Kevin Cain met on September 2 with the new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner, Margaret Hamburg, and the new Deputy Commissioner, Josh Sharfstein, at FDA headquarters near Washington, D.C.
During the meeting, the group discussed ways that the NHC and the FDA can work together to create incentives to develop new treatments and improve the discovery pipeline, and ways to ensure the FDA has adequate resources to meet its mission, as the country moves toward more personalized medicine.
The NHC found a receptive audience and looks forward to an ongoing partnership with the FDA.
On August 12, the NHC was part of a delegation representing patients, scientists, and medical schools that met with Rob Nabors, Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the next fiscal year budget and beyond.
Participating in the meeting were Weinberg; Mark Lively, President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology; Darrell Kirch, President of the Association of American Medical Colleges; and Howard Garrison, Deputy Executive Director of Public Affairs of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.
The four pointed out that recent funding for NIH included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has already produced jobs, generated new economic activity, and unleashed new creative energies in the form of new research proposals and projects. The group emphasized the importance of sustaining the momentum and not bringing newly energized enterprises to an abrupt halt when the ARRA funds end in fiscal year (FY) 2011. They urged the Administration to support a program of predictable, sustained growth in order to accelerate progress and maximize the yield of investment in research.
As a target, the three presidents suggested setting a yearly increase in funding equal to the average rate of growth for NIH during the past 30 years, which has been 3% above the biomedical inflation rate.
Nabors expressed strong support for predictability in funding for science, but added that he was unable to commit any particular funding levels at this time. The challenge, Nabors noted, is to find a balance between investment and deficit reduction.
Weinberg reminded him of the needs of the patient community and the value of the work being conducted by NIH. She encouraged the Administration to become the public champion for investment in medical research. Kirch added that the academic medical community is willing to assist in finding ways to provide more effective and economical medical care. Lively described how ARRA funds have created and preserved jobs at medical centers and research universities across the nation.
As the meeting concluded, Weinberg offered to provide additional information and expressed the group’s willingness to assist in any way possible. A document summarizing the case for NIH in FY 2011 and beyond was provided to Nabors for his consideration.
Staff contact: Myrl Weinberg, President
